


Insect Politics

by hotdogharvester



Category: Dragon Ball
Genre: Abuse, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Black Comedy, Depression, Forced Pregnancy, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Kidnapping, Mushrooms, Panic Attacks, Physical Abuse, REAL BAD SHIT HAPPENS BUT IT DOES COME TO AN END, Rain Sex, Sexual Abuse, Suicidal Thoughts, Trauma, Vomiting, WEIRD SCI-FI PREGNANCY, Weird Biology, listen idek what i can tag that won't be spoilers, unintentional comedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-30
Updated: 2018-09-04
Packaged: 2018-10-25 21:46:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 8
Words: 24,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10773096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hotdogharvester/pseuds/hotdogharvester
Summary: This diverges from Biological Imperative in chapter five.http://archiveofourown.org/works/5897326/chapters/13971937You could probably still get something out of this if you haven’t read that though.Most of thisA very small portion of this was in the fragment I posted a while back while I was roaring drunk. BASICALLY, Cell is a slimy bastard, you're traumatized, and you'll do basically anything to get away from him.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Readers, we have crossed the Rubicon. We are no longer in dark erotica territory; we have gone straight through the flesh and into horror. Then we’re going to go from horror to black comedy. And maybe some other places. I’m not sure. This all started because of my erotic fixation on Perfect Cell and now it’s become some psychological horseshit. It’s gonna take a weird comedic turn at the end. This wasn’t supposed to come out funny but somehow it did!

“You’re an insolent, ungrateful wretch. If I didn’t need you around, you’d be joining him at the bottom of the cliff. A lesser being would have disposed of you by now.”

_Why does he need me around?_

            “So what you’re saying is you’re not going to kill me.”

            He frowns.

            “Not yet, but—”

            Before you can really consider the far-reaching consequences of your actions, you jerk your head back as far as it will go and spit in Cell’s face.

            “And you thought I was irritating before.”

            He smooths one hand down his face before wiping it on your hair.

            “You’re going to pay for that, dear one.”

            The next thing you know he’s thrown you over one of his giant shoulders and blasted off, flying so fast you have no hope of figuring out where you’re going. All you know when he touches down again is that you’re far away from the cliff and farther still from the valley where he dumped your house. The air is cold and wet, and the sky is dark with clouds. A little thunder rumbles close by.

            Cell doesn’t put you down immediately. First he pulls off your shoes and drops them. Then he holds you in front of him with his hands under your armpits, like a man appraising a small dog. The smirk is back. The fucking smirk.

            “You’re going to stay here for a while and think about what you’ve done.”

            More thunder rumbles. Before you can ask what the fuck he thinks he’s doing he heaves you into a mud puddle, grabs your shoes off the ground, and flies away.

            Well, shit.

            Here you are, traumatized, shoeless, caneless, in the middle of nowhere, and now a storm is rolling in. You don’t feel dead, not exactly, but you certainly don’t feel alive. The ground is soft under your bare feet, at least. The pine needles are unpleasant but it could be much worse. Maybe you can find shelter before the sky bursts.

            Is he even gone? He’s probably just going to watch you flounder in the wilderness.

            “HEY ASSHOLE,” you yell.

            “YOU’RE GONNA HAVE TO DO BETTER THAN THIS TO GET TO ME YOU ROTTEN BASTARD! I’VE SLEPT OUTSIDE BEFORE. I DON’T GIVE A _SHIT_.”

            No answer. Of course, that doesn’t mean he’s not listening. You take in a deep breath to yell something else but in that moment there’s an absolutely terrifying clap of thunder, and the first fat drops of rain begin to fall.

            You pick a direction at random and limp off, hoping against hope that you’ll find shelter from the storm before your strength gives out.

• • •

“You must be cold.”

            The words rouse you from your miserable stupor. Hours have passed since Cell dumped you in the woods with nothing but the clothes on your back. Your search for a cave or a rocky outcrop proved fruitless, and eventually you collapsed under a pine tree, too tired to even worry about lightning strikes.

            It's pitch dark out, but the barest edge of silhouette shows you that Cell is standing only a few feet away. Looking at him doesn't make you feel sick anymore: just angry. Barely even that, to be honest.

            “Whatever gave you that idea?” you mutter.

            “Come," he says. “I'll take you back to the house. Let's make amends, shall we?”

            Raising one arm, you lob a loose fistful of mud and grit somewhere in his direction. You might have hit him if you could aim at all: if you had any feeling in your fingers.

            “I would literally rather die than do that.”

            For about twenty seconds there's no sound but the incessant pelting of rain. Then he lets out a long, aggrieved sigh.

            “It just never stops with you, does it?”

            The mud squishes under his feet as he steps right up to you. As he comes into better view, you notice something grotesque.

            “Have you had your dick out this whole time?”

            He doesn't answer until after hoisting you up and pinning you against the rough bark of the enormous tree. His phallus extends upward like a giant mushroom, rainwater glistening as it drips down the shaft. He traps it between the two of you and the slimy, searing thickness presses hard against your belly.

            “Well, I was going to wait until you were home and dry, but you're just acting so difficult.”

            You try to squirm away but you're so weak, and there's nowhere to go anyway. Even if he was an ordinary human you'd be in trouble. Plus, you're freezing, and he's warm. On an extremely basic level it's nice to have him up against you.

            “The hell you were. Let me guess, if I had gotten up and gone with you, you'd be doing just what you're doing now, but you'd be calling it a 'reward' for being so cooperative, right?”

            He leans into you so hard you can barely take a breath. His chest vibrates against yours, reverberating with his repulsive laughter. 

            “You're making it very hard for me to be nice to you. But then, I've never shied away from a challenge.”

            Then he threads his fingers through yours and widens his stance, lowering his face down to yours. You jerk your head away as much as you can. Tree bark scratches against your ear. His breath is hot and odorless on your skin.

            “Oh, you're so cold,” he murmurs.

            Soft, slow kisses land on your cheek. It's taking all your resolve not to react. You don't know what kind of reaction he wants, so you're not capable of doing whatever the opposite of that would be. His mouth is warm. Hell, his whole body is warm, and you would be happy to embrace him right back if he were anyone else on the planet. Pulling your face away when all you want is to be free of the cold is one of the hardest things you've ever done. The feeling is coming back into your hands and you can't bring yourself to struggle in his grip. 

            In spite of everything, a dreadful heat pools in your nether regions. It might just be an involuntary response to what he's doing. It might not. The fact that there's any ambiguity in that matter is both infuriating and shameful.

            He presses his lips to the corner of your mouth and you cringe, your eyes snapping shut. He pauses, huffing against your face. When he releases your hands to move you up a little higher, grabbing your ass he does so, you can't help but try to push his face away. You know it's useless. He knows that you know this. For a moment he indulges the impulse and lets you push him away. He smiles. It isn't even an evil smile. 

At this point you almost want him to hurt you: bite you, strangle you, break your ruined leg into pieces. That would be easier to deal with mentally.

            Cell removes his right hand from below and presses it against your left one. He tilts his head, eyes shut, and kisses your palm before you snatch it away.

            “Stop it.”

            He cocks his head.

            “Now why would I do that?”

            Silence. One corner of his mouth stretches up into a smirk. Even in this murky darkness you can see him smirk.

            “I don't want this,” you say.

            “Is this because I left you alone in the woods? You know I wouldn't have done that if you hadn't disrespected me.”

            “No, you idiot, you killed someone!”

            At the word "idiot" his composure falters. His mouth snaps into a hard, flat line and his eyes narrow.

            “There's no need to be rude, dear one.”

            Quick as anything he has both your wrists pinned over your head with one hand while his other seizes your chin, forcing you to look at him. All your weight is now suspended by your arms and it hurts like hell. The strain on your shoulders is making your eyes water.

            “If I recall correctly, you knew when I first came to you that I was a killer. You knew it when you kissed me back. You knew it when you led me into the woods and let me inside you, and you knew it every time since then that I fucked you senseless–" he shoves his hand into your underwear and probes your slit with one finger, eliciting a shudder "–and made you scream. What's different now? Did that nameless young man mean more than everyone else I exterminated?”

            He's not wrong. Not quite. The boy today shouldn't have mattered so much. But he did. 

            “I'm allowed to change my mind,” you mumble.

            The shoulder pain is making it difficult to speak clearly. To say nothing of his finger slipping deeper and deeper inside you. In that moment, the only thing for which you're grateful is that he ground his claw-like nails into short, smooth stubs at some point between dumping you in the woods and now.

            “You're a hypocrite, and you're lying to yourself.”

            “There are worse things to be,” you growl.

            He slides in a second finger and you have to grit your teeth to keep from groaning. His in and out motions are slow, almost gentle, as if he doesn't want to cause excessive harm.

            “You bedded down with the doom of the human race and now you're feeling guilty. You're a traitor to your planet. What do you think you're going to do now? Leave? Even if you did find some way to get away from me no one else would have you if they knew.”

            A flash of lightning illuminates the scene for a split second. Cell's mouth is stretched into an unnatural grin. The stark lighting makes him look hellish, the peaks of his head like the horns of a demon. You can feel your muscles contracting involuntarily as he violates you.

            “Even if I had said no in the first place wouldn't have stopped you. You can't blame me for trying to make the best of a bad situation.”

            “What if nothing. You surrendered yourself to me.”

            “It wouldn't have m-mattered if I'd said no.”

            “Ah, but you didn't. You said yes to me. You said yes to this.”

            His fingers are moving faster now, swirling and thrusting and scraping against your g-spot. Between that and the agonizing strain on your shoulders speech is almost impossible.

            “You can't f-force me to want you,” you choke out.

            He barks out a laugh.

            “I don't need to. I told you I was more than just a weapon. I have many abilities. For example, the voluntary production of hormones and pheromones that trigger arousal in human beings.”

 _What the fuck,_  you think.  _What the FUCK._

            He pushes his fingers in as far as they'll go and holds them there, buried to the knuckle inside you. His other hand is still clamped around your wrists. 

            “Or maybe I don't. Maybe this is all you. I don't have to force you to want me because however much you might protest, you DO want me.”

            Cell withdraws his hot, slippery fingers and presses them to your mouth.

            “What would you call that, exactly?”

            You can shut your mouth to him, but you can't shut your nose. The smell is equal parts you and him. Underneath your musk he smells like a doctor's office: sterile instruments and gynecological stirrups.

            Smiling in a soft sort of way, he moves his fingers to his own nose and takes a long sniff before sucking the residue off them with languid care. 

            “Lie to me all you want. Your body still tells the truth.”

            He releases your hands and you drop, crying out, but he catches you with his telekinesis before you hit the ground. Using the same power he wraps your legs around his waist and your arms around his neck in a gross parody of a devoted lover. He slips one hand under your shirt and threads the other through your hair, the way he had the first time he kissed you.

            “Like it or not, you belong with me,” he whispers.

            He brushes his lips against yours, breathing on your mouth, making a show of waiting for you to reciprocate. Fighting him off is exhausting. Physically, it's impossible, and mentally it's nearly so. You've never been so tired in all your life. Maybe it'll be worse for you if you keep resisting. Maybe it won't. It's just not worth the hassle.

_I hate you so fucking much._

            You touch your lips to his. Humming with satisfaction, he returns the motion. You're ready for him to turn savage, but he doesn't. His tongue even stays in his mouth. He plants kiss after gentle kiss on your trembling mouth and strokes the back of your head. Soft touches, tender movements. It makes the bile rise in your throat.

            Holding you in place with telekinesis, he moves his hands to your shorts and rips them in two. You can't help cringing when he positions the tip of his penis at your entrance. He pushes in just a little, then stops. Presses his mouth to your forehead.

            “This doesn't have to be an ordeal, you know. It's only difficult for you because you're making it that way.”

            Even now, even after that small surrender, you're straining to get away from him. You're so weak it's hardly noticeable.

            “Maybe you've just forgotten how nice I can be," he murmurs. "I'm going to make you feel extremely good.”

            "I don't want you to do any of this."

            Your voice is nothing but a faint, crackling whisper.

            “It doesn't really matter what you want. What you need is to come to terms with who and what you are.”

            He rubs his hand up and down your back.

            “Just relax. It will be better for you.”

            Sighing, he slides into you as easily as if you had been constructed just for him. There's a distinct feeling of stretching, but it isn't painful. If this wasn't rape—you feel dangerously close to blacking out just thinking of that word—it might even be pleasant. You shut your eyes tight and try to focus on just breathing.

            “That's my girl,” he purrs.

            “I really don't want to force you to do anything,” he adds. “I didn't lie about that. I'm not going to hurt you physically if I can avoid it. That wouldn't serve me.”

            He makes a few slow thrusts before pausing.

            “What, aren’t you even going to look at me?”

            At this point you decide that maybe it would irritate him more if you just stayed silent. Maybe the path of least resistance will work out better.

            “You’re acting very childish right now.”

            The fucking audacity of that statement pushes you over the edge. You can’t help it. It cannot be ignored. You snicker, face tight with how hard you’re trying not to erupt in laughter.

            “What _exactly_ is so funny?”

            He sounds so genuinely affronted and it hits you like a brick to the solar plexus. Out of nowhere you’re howling with laughter.

            “Stop it,” he says.

            You open your eyes, just a crack, and his expression is so furious that it sends you into violent spasms of hilarity.

            “You’re so…pathetic…” you wheeze in between sobs. “You really can’t–can’t stand being ignored for thir-thirty seconds!”

            His grip on your pelvis is painfully tight but you can’t stop.

            “What is wrong with you!” you howl, tears streaming from your eyes.

            “Shut up,” he says, seething with anger, but you can’t stop.

            He starts thrusting again, vicious and coarse in his movements, but all that does is introduce an erratic rhythm to your laughter. Even though it hurts you can’t stop. It’s as if you’re a vessel for the absurdity of this situation.

            “Don’t laugh…don’t LAUGH WHILE I’M INSIDE Y—”

            But he doesn’t say “you.” He doesn’t finish that sentence, because, to the surprise of both of you, he climaxes, and his speech cuts off with what is unmistakably a whimper. That, at last, is what stops you laughing.

            No one says anything. He whimpered, and you heard it, and you know that he knows that you heard him make that noise. You flick your eyes up and to the left. Cell has the expression of a man who’s just shit himself.

            This is the funniest thing that’s ever happened, and all the laughter has gone out of you.

            “Did you just whimper?”

            He doesn’t answer.

            “I’m pretty sure you just whimpered when you came.”

            Cell pulls out of you with an audible _plup_ and cradles you against him, lightly smushing your face into his chest. Undeterred and totally delirious, you slither your head to one side.

            “H-hey Cell, my dude, can you confirm or deny, just wondering, did you just fuckin _whimper_ wh—”

            He takes off and the wind snatches away anything else you might have said. Minutes later he touches down in front of your house. Before you can renew that line of questioning he opens the front door, hurls you inside like a sack of garbage, and disappears into the night. After lying on the floor for a little bit you crawl to the entrance and shut the door so the rain doesn’t get in.

            A lot has happened just now. You don’t know how to process it or what to do, so you just pass out right there on the floor. When you wake in the early morning, you can feel your hands and feet again. Unfortunately you can also feel your neck, which has a horrendous kink in it. Too tired to clean up but not too tired to move, you relocate to your bed and fall back asleep, scattering mud and pine needles all over the sheets. It’s the soundest sleep you’ve had in a long, long time.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hey there ho there. Sorry for the huge gap in between installments. I've been more depressed than usual the last few months but lately I've been getting a handle on it. If you're just here for the boning it doesn't happen until the very end. Boy howdy I just can't stop exploring the terrible implications of Cell fucking a human being. Don't live like me.

Six entire days pass with no sign of your captor. The first two days you spend holed up inside because of the rain so you don’t really notice his absence at first. On the third day, you run out of milk. On the fourth day, no new groceries have appeared on your doorstep. You won’t be in trouble for a little while at least but it definitely is concerning.

            It’s strange. You finally have a little peace and you can’t stop thinking about him: wondering when he’ll come back, wondering if it was only embarrassment that made him leave so abruptly. Can he even feel embarrassment?

            Maybe what you're feeling is a mild form of Stockholm syndrome. Going from being alone most of the time to spending hours on end in the company of a horny monster has had some kind of effect on you. You don't sympathize with him at all, not one jot, but you feel as if you understand him much better now. Cell was made for a very specific purpose, and he fucked it up. The world has forgotten him and he has no allies in the whole universe. Tormenting you is the only thing he has left. And you laughed in his face.

            Good. It's what he deserves. Even if he feels "bad," if he feels anything, he's an unrepentant mass murderer. If nothing else, he makes it very easy for you to keep things in perspective.

            As hilarious as it was witnessing a smug, evil bastard like him lose control, you don't like thinking about what happened in the rain that day. It was...horrible. On some level, none of what's happened between you and him has been consensual, because even though you allowed him to fuck you originally you never really had the chance to say no. If you had refused, he would have...well shit, it's hard to think of that word. But you're not helping yourself by ignoring it. Rape. He would have raped you. And then he ended up doing it anyway.

            Things have changed. It wasn't _really_ different than the other times but somehow it WAS different. It was worse, even though he didn't scratch you or bite you or shove your face in the mud. You've had consensual sex with human beings that was more physically uncomfortable than what he did then. Even though it ended in humiliation for him it was still grotesque and agonizing for you.

            The solitude is a blessing, ultimately. You can't bring yourself to let your guard down but it's still nice. On the fifth day the sun comes out and you go for a short walk. The ground is soft and the sky is clear. You take note of some of the nearby foliage: tall, white-barked trees with forked leaves, dark and thorny shrubs, and moss upon moss. A spray of odd blue mushrooms grows on a fallen log not ten paces from the edge of the meadow. They stick in your mind, probably just because they're the same kind you saw at the end of your failed escape attempt.

            Back inside, you rifle through your nonfiction books until you find a guide to local flora and fauna fallen behind the shelves. Blowing on the cover dislodges a blanket of dust. Interesting, isn’t it, that storing a house in its capsule form doesn’t disturb the interior in any way, not even the dust?

            A very old friend gave the book to you when you announced you were moving away from the city. If you get out of this situation, you're going to get back in touch with them. You're going to get back in touch with a lot of people.

            You flip to the section on fungi and find what you're looking for almost immediately.

Lepiota Ipecacuanha: _Easily identified because of its distinctive blue coloration. Some people cultivate it in their gardens because of its unique aesthetic, but many counties have restrictions against it. Mildly poisonous to humans, it was once used in medicine because of its powerful emetic effects. Cooking renders it safe to eat, but tasteless, and it has negligible nutritional value. The strangest effect of the "vomit cap," as it is popularly known, is that when it is ingested and subsequently expelled the blue flesh reacts with stomach fluids to produce a thick, dark red slime. Frequently mistaken for blood, this grotesque substance has resulted in many panicked trips to hospitals where the afflicted person was ultimately fine after puking up all of the lepiotes._  

            Interesting. To say the least. Maybe this could be useful somehow. Or maybe you just stumbled upon this information for no reason. The big question is whether or not Cell knows anything about mushrooms and their effects on humans. If he's so dead set on keeping you alive, then it might be interesting to see how he reacts when it seems like you're puking up blood.

            On the off chance that you lose what little agency you have, you walk back out to the woods with a bowl and fill it up with vomit caps. The bowl fits nicely in your refrigerator's crisper. It can't be bad to have them at the ready, just in case. In case of what you don't know, but whatever it is, you're prepared.

            In the afternoon of the sixth day Cell comes back.

            The meadow grass tickles your bare feet as you trudge along, getting some fresh air for no other reason than to do it. You almost went out with no clothes on, because why not, but your last remaining scrap of propriety prevented you from doing so. The end of your cane digs deep into the wet earth with every step you take. Everything is unnaturally silent, and that’s how you know your peace is about to come to an end.

            Cell touches down behind you and wraps you up in a desperate hug, pinning your arms against your sides and burying his nose in your hair. It’s a strangely intimate move. You suppress the urge to kick your legs against him and your stomach churns. He plants a wet kiss on your scalp.

            “I missed you.”

            He shuffles you up against his body and presses his cheek against yours, syncing your breathing with his. You shut your eyes and count to ten.

            “What the fuck do you want?” you ask.

            Your voice is shaky and, to be frank, pathetic. Even though you feel dead inside your voice makes you sound utterly terrified.

            “Hm. To the point, as always. You might want to sit down for this next part.”

            He spirits you off, back into the house, into your room, and sits you down on the bed. After a moment’s thought, Cell pulls your desk chair over and sits in it. He steeples his fingers, elbows on his knees, and regards you intently.

            “I wasn't planning on fucking you today, but you're ovulating, and I need to take advantage of that.”

            “Excuse me?”

            Thus begins the most uncomfortable staring contest of your entire life. There was a whole lot to process in what he just said and it's all banging around in your head in a terrible cacophony. Ovulating? OVULATING? Why does he know that word? How would he know if your body was even doing that? What the fuck? You were well on your way into a five alarm panic attack but hearing that word snapped you straight out of it and into a weirdly lucid state of awareness.

            "Did you say _ovulating_?"

            “Yes. If I am to succeed in my revenge plan, I must impregnate you.”

            “What the fuck? What the fuck are you talking about?”

            He sighs, as if you're being the weird one and not him.

            “I become stronger by absorbing other organisms. Humans are not strong enough to have any significant impact on my power. I cannot seek out significantly powerful people on this planet without attracting the attention of my enemies. Thus, the most practical course of action is to create a hybrid organism with my own superior DNA and absorb it when it achieves maturity.”

            You lean forward and rest your chin on your hand.

            “And you think the way to do this is to...impregnate me...because somehow you can just tell that I'm at that point in my cycle...and absorb whatever hellspawn emerges from my guts.”

            “More or less.”

            The point at which any kind of delicacy would be appropriate has long since passed.

            “Cell, I'm gonna level with ya, that might be the goddamn dumbest thing I've ever heard.”

            It's only the second time you've addressed him by name, but he doesn't notice. His face contorts in fury. 

            “How _dare_ you—"

            “Oh don't fucking 'how dare you' me, you're involving me in this horseshit, I'll say whatever I want. This is a shit idea and you're insane for even considering it.”

            “I suppose you have a better plan.”

            “Yes. Actually! Yes! I do! How about LITERALLY ANYTHING ELSE.”

            He rolls his eyes and gestures as if he's about to speak again but you cut him right off.

            "You could fly up into space and go ANYWHERE and instead you're here. That's–I can't even explain how crazy that is. You lost. Get the fuck over it. The fact that you're alive is some kind of miracle and you're going to throw that away just to try to get back at the people who, very justifiably I might add, killed you? Fuck off!"

            "I don't have any other purpose!"

            "Then get a fucking hobby and leave me out of your zany schemes."

            He jumps to his feet in insensate rage. Small objects around the room are vibrating up into the air.

            "IT IS NOT A ZANY SCHEME."

            "It is both zany AND a scheme. Listen. LISTEN. Don't interrupt me. Shut up. What if you fucking can't do it? And I don't mean just with me, with any human? What if my anatomy wasn't what it is? What if I was barren or on birth control or any one of a hundred things? I would have been safe then, wouldn't I? Fuck, how do you know if your spunk is even viable?"

            "The term you're looking for there is semen. It is semen, it was designed by a genius to be compatible with four different species, and it IS viable."

            "If you're putting it inside me I'll call it whatever I damn well please. It's spunk and it's nasty." 

            "No part of me is nasty. You should be honored that I even deign to touch you."

            Uncontrollable giggling wells up and out of you. His face contorts even more, such that it barely resembles a face. Oh boy, he looks like he wants to kill you for real. You've never seen a living thing make a face like that.

            "Hoooooly shit do you even listen to yourself when you talk. You're KILLING me. You haven't dedicated any actual thought to this, have you?”

            Faster than you can see he has you spread-eagled on the bed, his hands enveloping your wrists and his knee pressing painfully into your groin.

            “You can’t stop me,” he growls, his face inches from yours.

            Something in your mind breaks free and dissolves. The situation has shifted, somehow. The air feels different. Sure, he can force you to do almost anything, but he can’t change how you feel.

            “Stop you? Why would I wanna stop you?”

            You lift your head and brush your lips against his. He doesn’t move but a shudder passes through him. Strange.

            “All you’re really doing is giving me a front row seat to your next failure. If that’s what letting you fuck me means, then I’m super into it. You know what? Go for it. I'm officially consenting to this. Go ahead and put a monster baby inside me so I can laugh in your idiot face when this whole thing goes tits up."

            Cell’s expression goes totally blank when you say that. Then the worst possible thing happens. He smiles.

            “Hmm. You do seem to forget, dear one, that while we have _history_ you are not unique among human beings. I could very easily replace you with someone more cooperative.”

            Cell rolls onto his back and takes you with him, squeezing you against his chest with one arm. He uses his other hand to wrench your head back by the hair, forcing you to look him in the eye.

            “Or, perhaps, you want a companion. Would you enjoy watching me break someone else? I could shatter one of their bones every time you misbehave! I surely won’t need more than one progeny to achieve my goal but it might be prudent to cultivate a backup plan in case your own womb never quickens. What do you think of that? Would you like to watch me lavish this attention on someone else?”

            It turns out he can, in fact, change how you feel, because in less than thirty seconds Cell has taken you from overconfident to petrified. It’s panic attack time again. Except, you can’t succumb to that right now.

            “Well?”

            “Please…please don’t hurt anyone else. Please, just…you know I can’t stop you. Whatever you decide to do, that’s on you, just…I don’t even know what I’m fucking saying right now.”

            His expression softens, and then, out of nowhere, he looks disturbed.

            “…something wrong?”

            “I’m not enjoying this,” he replies.

            “What?”

            He lets go of your hair and allows you to slide off him to the left.

            “I’m supposed to take pleasure in tormenting and threatening you but this just isn’t doing anything for me. I enjoyed it more when you came to me willingly but I cannot figure out _why_.”

            You side-eye him as he stares up at the ceiling.

            “Well, that is weird. I thought terrorizing and torturing people was supposed to be your whole deal.”

            He looks as if he’s about to say something. His mouth opens and closes.

            “This is very strange,” is all he can come up with.

            A minute or so passes in total silence. You move to get up and leave the room but his hand closes around your wrist. He shakes his head, still lying there.

            “No. I have to do this, even if I’m feeling strange.”

            If only there was some way to convince him that he doesn’t have to do this. Any of this. He could just leave. But you know he won’t. He’s just following the instincts that were programmed into him. He’ll follow them off a cliff, straight back into hell.

            “How do you even know that I’m…that’s it’s that time of the month for me?”

            Cell cocks his head in your direction.

            “Hormones. You smell different.”

            “You sure that’s not because I haven’t showered in a few days?”

            “No, it has nothing to do with that. However, you should be making more of an effort to maintain your personal hygiene.”

            “Well, I’ve been depressed lately. Shocking, I know.”

            He tugs you back over to his side and positions himself on top of you. A shudder passes through you just like it did him. Looking up into his empty pink eyes and smelling the vague antiseptic smell that trails after him all the time makes you flash back to high school biology: the pink light on the overhead projector, the smell of animal fetuses being decanted. How does it go? Zygote, blastocyst, then embryo? Any biologist would love to have a front row seat to what Cell intends to inflict on you.

            “You’re very tense,” he murmurs, one finger stroking your cheek.

            “No shit.”

            Confusion flits across his face. You try to look through him instead of looking away and his face blurs into something unrecognizable.

            “Why?”

            “What do you mean ‘why’? The last time you were around, you-you–”

            “You really found it that unpleasant? I thought you were just being difficult.”

            “Are you fucking kidding me. No, you’re fucking with me. No one could be this stupid.”

            “Don’t call me stupid.”

            Anxiety tightens in a hot red knot in your chest, somewhere in the area of your left lung. You can feel your heart beating in your throat.

            “I would prefer not to fuck you when you’re like this,” he says.

            You refocus your eyes on his face. He doesn’t seem to be joking.

            “However,” he adds, “if you can’t relax yourself soon, I’ll have to do it anyway. Figure it out or we’ll both have a bad time.”

            “Wow, you’re…really determined to do this. Against all logic.”

            “Making myself more powerful is the only logical next step.”

            With that, he removes himself from the bed and stands in his usual pose with his arms crossed.

            What is the right thing to do right now? Maybe there is no right choice. As if you have any real choice about what happens next. All you can do is try to make your survival a little bit less unpleasant. And god help you, you have an idea.

            “You know what? I have an idea for something that’ll make this more pleasant for the both of us. No bullshit. Give me twenty minutes.”

            Cell follows you out of the bedroom to observe. Under your kitchen sink, behind the drain cleaner and a bucket of rags, is an unlabeled bottle of clear liquid: rectified spirits. Your last partner—a boisterous truck driver from about seven years ago—left it behind when she had to continue on her route. You’ve forgotten her name and phone number, but the dangerously potent alcohol remains.

            “What is that?” he asks.

            “Something that’ll relax me.”

            He frowns.

            “Chill, it’s alcohol, not poison. Well, by a certain metric it’s poison, but it’s not going to hurt me nearly as much as you are.”

            “For the last time, it would not serve me to hurt you physically, and furthermore–”

            “Yeah, sure, whatever. Listen. You want to use my body for your own ends. I want you to go to hell. There’s no meeting in the middle, but this can make it less of an ordeal. Besides, I’m a horny drunk. That’s what you want, right? You want me to want you.”

            He doesn’t answer, only watches. Thank goodness you still have a can of soda in the back of your fridge; it would be impossible to drink this stuff straight. As you close the fridge door you see the outline of the bowl of mushrooms in the crisper drawer.

            Hmm. Not time for that yet.

            Eyeballing it, you pour three or four shots’ worth of the rectified spirits into an oversized glass. One shot of the stuff would get you pleasantly buzzed for a whole night. Two shots would guarantee a fight with a stranger if you were out at a bar. More than three is for an end of the world scenario, and this might as well be that. You have no fucking time to waste. The soda fills the glass the rest of the way up with a little to spare. Just enough for a chaser.

            You raise the glass in a toasting gesture. Cell just stares.

            “Cheers. This is going to fucking suck.”

            The first gulp is one of the worst things you’ve ever tasted, only beaten by the second gulp, and then the third. This absolute bastard of a cocktail is in the top five nastiest drinks you’ve ever had. It has just the faintest suggestion of soda: like soda-infused turpentine. The liquor has overwhelmed the sweet flavoring completely. It’s practically stripping the lining off your throat.

            The spirits hit your stomach like a cold fist and settle like the spreading of fingers. Two thirds of the way through you have to take a break. If you chug it all at once you’ll vomit for sure. It's already working, though. Intoxication is starting to cloud up around the edges of your body and mind. You can feel it coming like a drop in atmospheric pressure. The red knot of anxiety is loosening, lightening into something soft. The frayed ends of it feel tickly in your chest.

            After swirling a gulp of soda around your mouth you tackle the rest of the drink. It's worse, somehow. After swallowing the last of it you freeze in place, concentrating all your energy on not throwing up. Your stomach loses the battle of wills and you exhale with a groan. You touch your hand to your face and already the drunk feeling is there. Rectified spirits might taste like demon piss but they get the job done, that’s for goddamn sure.

            Cell seems concerned.

            “You don’t look as if you enjoyed that at all.”

            “I didn’t. And don’t fucking pretend that you care if I ‘enjoy’ myself. NOW. Go lie down and get your dick out. And keep your hands to yourself. Don’t touch me until I say ‘ok’.”

            In the second most shocking moment of the day so far, Cell does exactly that. He’s frowning but he does it. There’s his dick again, white and smoky violet, like an aesthetically pleasing but otherwise uninspired sex toy. You shuck off your shorts but leave your shirt on. The two of you stare into each other’s eyes, him on the bed and you standing beside it.

            “I hate you so fucking much. You know that, right? I just–” you clamber up on top of him and plant your ass on the corrugated segment between his chest and crotch “–really need you to know that. You’re the worst person I’ve ever met and I wish you would die every day.”

            “Yes, yes, I get it,” he spits. “Can we get on with it now?”

            “Hold your fucking horses. Here’s what’s gonna happen. I’m gonna get myself off and you are not going to touch me. Then, you can do whatever. If you don’t let me get myself in the mood it’s gonna suck. Understand? Is that too complicated?”

            “Obviously I understand–”

            “Hhhhang on, hang on. Ugh. Looking at you is gonna be a problem. I’m gonna put this sheet over you so I can get off in peace just once.”

            “Is this really necessary?”

            “Yes.”

            The sight of Cell lying prone with his arms crossed, a sheet draped over his upper body, is absolutely absurd. It doesn’t help as much as you hoped it would, but it makes him look stupid, and you don’t have to see his eyes anymore. Sure, you don't generally masturbate with your eyes open in the first place, but at least you won't be confronted with the sight of him when you finish. You take a deep, deep breath and let it out slowly. By now your anxiety feels like something that’s happening to someone else. It’s not gone, but it’s absent enough for you to feel other things.

            Now. Deep breaths. Unclench all your muscles. It's easier now that your blood alcohol level is skyrocketing. The situation doesn't seem any less horrifying but it does seem funnier. The further you get from sobriety, the easier it is to observe just how completely horrible everything is. Shit sucks. Shit really fucking sucks.

            You lick the tips of your middle and ring fingers and start gently massaging yourself. Just that. Think about nothing. After several minutes of this, you slowly insert one finger and just hold it there. Massage a little more. Remove the finger, insert two more. Hold still. Massage more. Think about survival. Think about escape. Think about Cell dissolving in a pit of acid. Contract your muscles around your fingers. After a couple minutes it starts to feel not enough: like your body wants more.

            "Oooookay then. Okay. Okay. You listening?"

            "Yes."

            He's stayed perfectly still but you can hear heaps of frustration in that one word.

            "I'm gonna...wow I hate saying this. This feels bad in my mouth. I'm gonna get you inside me, but don't move. Don't do a goddamn thing. Just lie there. I'm not done yet."

            "Just do it already."

            You rearrange yourself just behind his groin and take a hold of him. His cock twitches in your grasp, and driblets of opaque precum are mixing with the clear slime that coats his pale flesh. Disgusting barely even covers it. Compelling, yes, and convenient, but also disgusting.

            Supporting yourself on your good right leg, you slide down onto him with little trouble. The alcohol, god bless it, god bless the whole history of fermentation, has done its work well. Somewhere very far away an alternate universe version of you is having a panic attack. Everything here is loose and easy.

            There's a very slight sting and stretch as you bottom out and your ass comes to rest on his uncomfortable hips. You hold still and relax again. After a minute or so it’s like he’s not even there. Until, of course, you clench your vaginal muscles. Cell shudders underneath you.

            “Don’t move. Don’t move. Don’t move.”

            You repeat those two words in a soft mantra as you start to move up and down, never more than an inch or two at a time. Using his cock like a dildo, you get a rhythm going where the tip of it is constantly butting up against your G-spot. Never too hard, though. Whatever comes after this will likely be very harsh on you. Heat spreads through your whole groin. Your clitoris is rigid under your frantically scrubbing fingers. It won’t be long before you climax.

            Which means it won’t be long before Cell fucks you in earnest.

            “You know this isn’t going to work,” you grit out.

            He tenses.

            “This-this plan, me, my guts, it-it-FUCK-it’s insane.”

            You’re so close now.

            “They’re gonna KILL you AGAIN, and–”

            A cry escapes your throat. Before you can say anything else the orgasm explodes up through you like a flash grenade. It’s so intense you swear you can feel it in your eyeballs. Alcohol really is some kind of magic.

            Cell is shaking, with rage or lust or both you don’t know. You collapse forward, limp as a wet sock, and with your head on his chest you can hear the strange tripping internal rhythm of his organs. Sooner than you expect, your breath is caught and your vagina has stopped clenching involuntarily.

            “Okay. Okay. I’m good. You can do whatever now.”

            He doesn’t even remove the sheet. Cell wraps his arms around you, enveloping you in the thin fabric and squeezing your sweaty body against him, and fucks you as hard as he ever has. He only lasts about a minute before he also climaxes with a cry. It isn’t a cry of triumph, though. It sounds very similar to the whimper he let out the last time he took you.

            In the aftermath he just holds you there, the two of you still separated by the sheet he was too hasty to remove. Several minutes later his cock finally retreats and you feel distinctly empty. Cell moves you up, gently, and kisses you through the sheet. Neither of you says anything. You wouldn’t be so dramatic as to say that the silent, chaste kiss is somehow worse than him mercilessly fucking you in pursuit of an unholy pregnancy, but there certainly is something very off about it. Something foreboding. It makes you afraid to see his face again.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hey sorry I disappeared for six actual literal months. I had some boring personal troubles, but now it's a new year, new me, new writing schedule, no items, fox only, final destination. Which is to say I will be aiming for shorter and more frequent updates. There was supposed to be more in this chapter but then I thought, "fuck it, don't get it right, get it WRITTEN." Here's some more of this fuckin thing.

About ten minutes pass with you just lying on his chest, limp as a noodle. When he rolls you onto one side the whole room bucks and spins wildly, and you see two identical overhead light fixtures glitching into each other. Two ominously silhouetted Cell heads gaze down at you. Holy fuck, you're drunk. It's a good thing you're lying down because you're definitely too fucked up to walk or even stand.

           "Why are you doing that?"

           His voice rings out clear as a bell, strangely so in the blurry, spinning mess of the room.

           “Doing what?”

           “You're clutching your own face. Why?”

           “No I'm not.”

           “I'm watching you do it right now.”

           You look down at your right arm, tracing it with your eyes, and realize that he’s right. Your hand is indeed on your face.

           “Who...who cares why it's happening. Just move past it.”

           “You’re not well.”

           “Yeah and whose fuckin fault is that, genius.”

           “I didn’t force you to drink all that.”

           “Oh sure. Right. Absolutely. Yeah. You are…totally blameless here. Completely. Oh yeah, all you did was fuckin kidnap me, assault me, totally isolate me from all my friends and loved ones, leave me out during a rainstorm for hours and hours, threaten to hurt other people, but sure, not incorrect, you didn’t literally hold my mouth open and pour a bunch of liquor down my throat.”

           His face is doing the “murdery” thing again.

           “Boy golly you do get mad when I point out things you’ve actually done.”

           “Just move your hand.”

           “Nah.”

           He tugs your hand away. You slap your other hand onto your face.

           “Now what, shithead.”

           The words are muffled under your clammy palm. Exasperated, Cell pins your arms down on either side of your head. He stares at you for a moment. His face is blurring and jumping with the rest of the room.

           Then, just as his features come back into focus, he leans down and kisses you. It’s like the first time. Soft, tentative. His lips move like he’s whispering something into your mouth. With nothing better to do at the moment, you kiss him back.

           And then that’s all that happens for a few minutes. Cell weaves his fingers through yours and caresses your lips with his own. Then he turns you over, but gently, and kisses and licks his way all along the twisted map of scabbed-over cuts and bruises on your back. He sucks on a particularly tender spot and you wince.

           “Hey, is this…this isn’t necessary. This isn’t gonna, uh, further your goals, you know. That shit isn’t gonna improve your chances of…”

           You can’t bring yourself to say the word “conception.” He ignores you. Apparently this is what he wants to do right now, god only knows why. After canvassing the whole of your back he turns you face up again and ghosts his hands along the sides of your body. It’s then that you realize at some point between fucking you and now he removed your shirt. It should be troubling that you can’t remember this, but then again so much traumatizing shit has happened lately that you can’t really find your mental way to “troubled.”

           Starting at your neck, Cell kisses his way down your body, lingering to suck gently on your breasts. It doesn’t feel terrible, but it also doesn’t feel like _him_. Not that that’s bad. But it’s definitely not good.

           Still being gentle, he strokes his tongue over your sex. The attention he’s paying you continues to be superficially pleasant. You’re shivering. You can’t help it. Your whole body feels like a cut nerve. It’s infuriating.

           Without even thinking you do a half sit-up, smack your hand against his stupid crown and hiss, “Will you quit _fuckin around_?”

           Cell jerks back, affronted.

           “Will you stop being so difficult for once? I try to do something nice for you, and you slap me.”

           “Shut the fuck up. The only nice thing you could do for me would be if you flew off into space and disappeared. And you’re not doing that ‘for me’ you’re doing it because tormenting me gets you off.”

           He cocks his head.

           “Couldn’t it be both, dear one? I want you to feel good.”

           “You fucking off forever would make me feel really goddamned good.”

           “You hurt me when you say things like that.”

           “Well, good, great, that’s GREAT to know.”

           All of a sudden Cell is up in your face, and you don’t know if he moved that fast or if the alcohol clouded your perception. His nose brushes against yours. The tip of his dick catches on the rim of your vagina. You want to pull away but his arms are pinning you and even if you could, there’s nowhere to go.

           “Tell me what you want to do to me. Tell me how badly you want to hurt me.”

           You could tell him a lot. Probably more than his limited, manmade brain could even conceive of. It strikes you, dimly, that if the stories you heard are true then he really hasn’t been alive for all that long.

           “No.”

           “No?”

           “I’m not gonna do that for you. That’s what you want me to do. I’m not gonna do it.”

           He stares. One corner of his mouth points up in a slight variation on his usual smug smile.

           “So childish, even now.”

           “Fuck you.”

           His eyes narrow, and the smile stretches.

           “No. No, no, no. Wrong. _I’m_ going to be the one fucking _you_.”

           Cell thrusts into you with a jolt and you can’t stop yourself from letting out a strained moan. When he bottoms out it feels like he’s in your throat. But he doesn’t stay there long, and soon starts shifting back and forth in a punishing rhythm.

           For the first minute or two it hurts and that’s it. You’re sore. Even down in the guts of intoxication you’re still sore. But, after just a little while, after he quickens his pace and bites where your shoulder meets your neck, when his hands grab your ass and lift, the pain transforms into a sensation that isn’t quite pleasure but has you gasping underneath him. What it is—more than desire, even more than hatred—is intensity. It’s riding a sheer drop on a roller coaster. It’s missing a car crash by a hair’s breadth. It’s power.

           You can’t stand it, and you grit your teeth to keep from screaming. To give him the satisfaction of hearing you scream. The alcohol is making everything soft and slippery and you bite down so hard you feel a filling crack.

           Cell shifts position again and rams directly into that most sensitive spot inside you. A choking, beaten-out noise bursts from your throat. Your hands are shaking violently where they rest above your head. He rams it again. And again.

           And then, he presses two fingers to your sex and jerks them around in small, rough circles.

           Before you can climax he stops moving completely and presses his mouth to your ear.

           “Beg for it,” he hisses. “Beg for me to fuck you. Scream for me, you insolent whelp.”

           Instead of doing any of that, you sink your teeth into the alabaster flesh of his neck. To his and your surprise, you’re able to get a solid hold and clamp down. Growling, Cell redoubles his previous efforts and the two of you climax in perfect, infuriated sync.

           When he pulls himself free of your mouth, you see the faintest ghost of a bruise on his neck. Then his body heals itself, and, after overextending yourself while shitfaced, you black out completely.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I think one update per month is something I can do. Maybe. We'll see.
> 
> Cell blathers on and on about his bullshit feeeeeeeeelings and it sucks. He sucks. I hate him. Like yeah I have an erotic fixation on him and I want him to destroy my nethers but I also hate him.

Water breaks and closes over your head. Your eyes shoot open. You’re underwater. You’re DROWING. A hideous light blazes overhead, white and terrible. Thrashing and bashing your elbows against your confines, you burst through the water’s surface and grip the rim of the tub to stop yourself from falling back down.

            “HELLO?”

            Your voice is warbling and strange.

            “Who…what is happening.”

            “You fainted. And then you vomited.”

            Cell’s voice echoes from behind you. You’re in your own bathroom. Of course you are. Where else would you be?

            “I thought it might be prudent to move you to somewhere where you might clean yourself. After turning you on your side, of course. You’re no good to me dead.”

            Now that you’re awake and mostly sober you’re starting to notice more things. One, the horrible taste in your mouth, certainly from when the rectified spirits were ejected from your stomach. Two, your steadily growing headache. Three, the soreness between your legs. Four, the frigid temperature of the water.

            “Fucking god, it’s cold in here.”

            You start to raise yourself out of the tub but a hand on your head stops you.

            “No. You’re not getting out of there until I say so.”

            “FUCK, why’d you have to use cold water?!”

            “My understanding is that cold water will get you sober faster.”

            Cell walks around to the foot of the tub and leans against the opposite wall, staring at you. His expression is pained.

            “I don’t want you to poison yourself like that again. It doesn’t please me to see you sick.”

            Your throat burns a little.

            “What the fuck is wrong with you?” you ask.

            Cell looks away. That’s weird. REALLY weird.

            “I have my own purposes. My own wants. I was made for one man’s purpose but I grew beyond that the moment I became self-aware. The whole world was supposed to be mine to destroy: nothing that I could not obliterate, nothing that I could not permanently change. Dr. Gero had plans and I thought I could disregard them at my leisure.

            “But…there are some things he did to which I am still somehow beholden.”

            Good lord, he’s getting monologuey again. You roll your eyes but he’s so into himself right now he doesn’t seem to notice. Maybe you actually died when you passed out and this is hell. Hell being your own bathroom with a tub full of cold water and history’s most self-important mass murderer seems a little minimalist, though. A little austere for a realm of eternal suffering. Plus, while you might not like yourself much, you’re pretty sure you haven’t done anything that merits being banished to hell upon your death.

            “When I went away, after our tryst in the woods, I had some suspicions I needed confirmed. The doctor kept copies of all his data at a secret location, the coordinates of which he programmed into my brain. I flew there. The base was not destroyed. I found the information I sought and confirmed my…significant qualms.

            “There is something happening in my brain to which I never agreed. I do not want it to be happening but at the same time I do. It’s…vexing. Infuriating. This was never supposed to happen. Do you understand? I was supposed to kill Goku, and his friends, and then kill the world. That was it. Gero never should have had a backup plan. He never should have done this to me.”

            Cell doesn’t wait for you to ask what the fuck he’s talking about. He shifts his weight from foot to foot and crosses his arms in a movement that looks infinitely more uneasy and insecure than his usual self-assured pose.

            “It was his idea, of course, that I might create a hybrid organism and absorb it. He designed me to be reproductively viable. That in itself would not be so terrible, but he also installed a kind of defense mechanism to prevent me from destroying my partner. As if I lack self-control,” he scoffs.

            Even if you had no survival instinct, you’re too tired and sick to laugh.

            “He didn’t trust me to have the most basic willpower. He programmed in a chemical reaction that he thought would stop me from harming my offspring’s host. I am changing and I do not like it. For the first time I feel as if I am not in control of myself, and it is _maddening_. Finding you was a mistake. Taking you away was a mistake, but I never could have known until it was too late.”

            Huh. That’s…well, it’s something.

            “If I could perform brain surgery on myself I would not have this problem! I can regulate my body temperature and my heartbeat and my energy levels and so many other things but not THIS. It incenses me. If I were not the flawless being that I am it would surely drive me mad.

            “I’ve never…I have never _liked_ being around anyone before. I never noticed being alone before. Until I took you away I never noticed what it was like to be around someone and not try to fight them. Do you understand? No, I don’t think you understand. Nothing that I’m feeling makes any sense. You're a terrible companion. Your body is weak and disgusting. All you do is frustrate me. There shouldn't be anything appealing about you.”

            He sounds as upset now as he did when he detailed his return to Earth and his discovery that he had been completely forgotten. This is bad. Something extremely bad and weird is going on.

            Cell looks directly at you.

            “I don’t want to hurt you. I think–" and it's the first time you hear him really hesitate “–I like you.”

            You blink.

            “Oh,” you say.

            This is officially the worst.

            He stares at you. You stare at him. He stares at you, and you stare right back at him. Thankfully, before you can say anything, he brings his hand up to his right temple and starts babbling again.

            “I have two options, as far as I can see. After the initial phase of my plan is completed and I have killed my enemies, I will gather the Dragon Balls. I could wish to be rid of this feeling and all feelings like it. Or I could wish for you to feel the same way about me. I haven’t decided yet. Oh, I’m no fool. It’s obvious you’re too limited to return the gift of my feelings for you. Fortunately for both of us I have a lot of time to consider the benefits of both possibilities.”

            Of course there are other possibilities. He could stop. He could leave. He could go anywhere in the universe and leave the world (and you) alone forever. But he won’t. You know he won’t. And now there’s the possibility that you won’t ever be free of him. Hell would be better than that.

            He continues to speak but you aren’t listening. You sink down under the surface of the water and stare at the overhead light. It’s quieter down here. The cold isn’t so biting now. All the pain in your back and your throat and your stomach and the space between your legs is dulled and fuzzy.

            You get maybe thirty seconds of peace before Cell hauls you up by the shoulders, a manic look contorting his face. For a split second it looks like he’s going to kiss you. Instead, he wraps his arms around you in a gentle embrace, heavy breaths wracking his frame.

            Holy shit, you have GOT to get out of here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How long is Cell supposed to live? I'm not sure. I'll bet dollars to donuts Gero didn't intend for him to go on forever. I bet he's got an internal expiration date. If I can I'll try to bring that up soon. THAT'S gonna be interesting.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What's UP party people. The shitstorm continues. I started thinking too hard about the practical implications of a self-lubricating penis and then this happened. Don't live like me! (No, there isn't any fucking in this chapter. Just weird shit. Sorry, horny folks. It'll come back soon.)

“How long are you supposed to live?” you mumble.

            Cell doesn’t respond. He’s still kneeling on the bathroom floor with his arms around you.

            “You said you were made for a purpose. If the guy who made you wanted to take over the world I can’t imagine he…”

            You’re not sure what to say.

            “What else did he program in that you didn’t know about? If…if that thing you just told me is still working even after you died and came back to life, then…?”

            _Do you have an expiration date?_ is the question you can’t quite bring yourself to ask.

            “Don’t ask about those things,” Cell replies.

            He pulls back and looks you dead in the eye.

            “As your master, I forbid you to speculate on what may or may not be programmed into my body.”

            You blink. The alcohol has not worn off completely, and the growing headache has loosened your tongue.

            “You’re not my anything. You’re just a loser who’s making my life a living hell.”

            The second the words leave your mouth you wonder what the fuck happened to your sense of self-preservation. A muscle twitches in Cell’s cheek. Fear burns deep in your gut. Faster than you can see, he slaps you with such force that your head whips completely to one side and your whole body collides with the tub wall. The inside of your mouth is bleeding from where it smashed into your teeth; the tang of copper mixes obscenely with the dry aftertaste of vomit.

            He grabs a fistful of your hair and lifts you bodily out of the tub, sending water all over the room.

            “Whether you accept it or not,” he hisses in your ear, “I am in charge. I have total control over you. Your life—your entire world—is in my hands. If you think the inconvenient series of chemical reactions playing out in my brain is going to stop me from disciplining you when you disrespect me, then you are _sorely_ mistaken.”

            On the word “sorely” he twists the hand in your hair, pain streaking through your scalp.

            “Please,” you grit out, eyes shut, your own hands clamping to his wrist.

            “You’re hurting me,” you add, voice rising into a moan.

            He lowers you back into the tub and lets go. Eyes still shut, you hear him sit down. The top of your head is smarting and you can feel that new bruise blooming on your cheek.

            “If only you would not antagonize me so. My impulse is still to inflict pain. But…I truly do not wish to harm you. Hurting people pleases me, but hurting you—even when you are so horribly behaved—no longer satisfies.”

            He sighs.

            “What a mess I find myself in. I was meant to grapple with great warriors, not with emotions.”

            That was almost a joke. If you weren’t in horrible pain because of him you might even congratulate him on it. If you had anyone to be honest with right now, you might admit to being terrified beyond the capacity for rational thought. Since you’re functionally alone, however, you can keep that fun little detail to yourself.

            You open your eyes when you hear him scoot across the bathroom floor back to your side. He picks up your bottle of two-in-one shampoo and conditioner, pauses, and then squeezes a huge puddle into his upturned palm.

            “Whoa, whoa, what are you doing?”

            “You haven’t washed yourself in several days. I want to help.”

            “That’s…that’s enough soap for like six people, hold on. You only need a little of it.”

            “You’re very dirty.”

            “That’s just for hair! I don’t have that much hair!”

            “You use more than one kind of cleaning substance?”

            “Pretty much every human being does that.”

            “Well, excuse me, I’ve never washed hair before.”

            “You really don’t have to do this, I can wash mys–”

            Cell dumps the liquid soap on your head. You shut your eyes again before the ridiculous quantity of shampoo can ooze into your eyes. Thankfully, his fingers are light on your scalp, and he keeps his scrubbing shockingly gentle.

            “I thought you said you watched me for weeks before this,” you mumble. “You never saw me take a shower?”

            “I tried to watch, but this part of your bathroom isn’t visible through the window, and despite having a fantastic array of skills the ability to see through walls is not among them.”

            Against all expectations, his fingers actually feel pretty nice right now.

            “What _did_ you see me do?”

            Cell moves his fingers to the sides of your head. He’s making tiny circles with the tips of his fingers, and fuck, it feels great.

            “A great many things,” he says. “Preparing and eating food. Reading. Watching recorded performances of fictional stories. Masturbating. Gardening. Staying awake long into the night and then sleeping until very late in the day. Going out into the woods for no apparent purpose. And always alone.”

            “Just because I’m alone doesn’t mean I’m _alone_.”

            “That does not make sense.”

            “I have friends and family, they just live far away. We talk online. Through our computers.”

            “Humans are social creatures. That kind of connection cannot be enough, and I know you didn’t always live like this.”

            “You know what happened. I suffered a trauma. Because of _you_. I went away. I’m living my own life based on what _I_ want.”

            _And I don’t know why I’m trying to justify myself to a mass murderer._

            “Well, it must be nice to have someone to talk to in the flesh for a change,” he says lightly.

            You don’t really know what to say to that. Cell finishes working the shampoo into your hair and wipes his hands on your back. The residue trickles onto some of your fresher scabs and you wince.

            “I am…conflicted, I must confess, between my distaste for hurting you physically, and the satisfaction I feel when I see the marks I can leave on you. Your flesh is so soft and malleable. So unlike my own body.”

            Again, you have no fucking idea what to say to that. Cell runs his hands up and down your arms. He works the shampoo into a mild lather and actually does an ok job washing the top half of your body.

            “Stand up so I can do your lower half.”

            “I’m not sure I can stand up,” you admit. “I don’t really feel all th–”

            He lifts you telekinetically out of the water. His hands go straight to your crotch, and when he presses a soapy finger to your entrance you jerk around wildly in midair.

            “No, no, no, soap doesn’t go in there! Only on the outside! I’ll get an infection. Soap doesn’t go INSIDE any part of me. Got it?”

            “How does it get clean, then?”

            “It’s…it cleans itself. That’s how it works.”

            “If your genitalia cleans itself, then why doesn’t the rest of your body clean itself?”

            “…I have absolutely no idea. But if you shove a bunch of soap into my snatch I will get an infection and it will absolutely affect my body chemistry in ways I know you don’t want.”

            Mouth set in a firm line, he moves his hands to your legs and continues his gentle scrubbing.

            “Hey, you know what, that’s weird,” you mutter.

            “What’s weird?”

            “You’ve been…really rough with me, and I haven’t been taking good care of myself either hygiene-wise or diet-wise. By all logic I should have an awful yeast infection by now. Why am I not sick in the downstairs area?”

            Your question summons forth that most hated expression of his: The Smirk.

            “Well, dear one, his own creative limitations aside, my creator was quite a practical man. The natural lubricant my phallus secretes is pH balanced. It has its own cultures designed to make any reproductive system more receptive to my–”

            “Okay! Okay. Of course it is. Of course it can. Fine. Why not. I don’t know what I expected.”

            Cell lowers you back into the tub so you can rinse off. Then he levitates you back out and wraps you in two towels before carrying you back to the bedroom.

            “I really only need one towel, and you don’t need to carry me.”

            “Is there ice in your refrigerator?” he asks.

            “Yeah, I…think so. In the freezer drawer. Why?”

            “For your face.”

            He leaves the bedroom and returns with a fistful of ice cubes bundled up in one of your dishrags. He presses the cold mound to the bruise on your cheek.

            Before you can stop yourself, the words, “Oh, thanks,” slip out of your mouth.

            Cell’s eyes widen. So do yours. Oh, no. No. You didn’t mean to say that. He was the one who put the bruise there in the first place. You have not been held against your will long enough for Stockholm syndrome to be a possibility.

            “I didn’t–I didn’t mean–”

            He swoops around the cold pack and pecks you on the lips.

            “You are _very_ welcome, dearest,” he whispers.

            Cell turns to leave, then turns back for a moment before making his leisurely way out of the room.

            “Maybe you can learn to appreciate me without supernatural intervention.”

            The word “horror” doesn’t even begin to do justice to the feeling bubbling up in your guts right now. If you weren’t lying down and chock-full of adrenaline you would definitely faint. Again. Since that’s not an option, you settle down into bed, still cocooned in towels, and have yourself a good old-fashioned panic attack.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ahhhhhhhh the terrible reality of living with a bug man who is actually dumb as hell and bad at everything that doesn't involve being a raging asshole
> 
> the dick's not coming out again until next chapter, sorry 2 disappoint

You’re still twitching and curled into a fetal position inside the towel cocoon when Cell returns, signaled by the mechanical squeaking of his feet.

            “Please go away,” you mumble.

            There’s a soft _thunk_ of glass on wood.

            “I brought you some water.”

            “Good. Great. Now go aw…hold on.”

            Now that you’re in the cool down stage of the panic attack you’re noticing things about your surroundings. The mattress is totally bare.

            “What did you do with my sheets?”

            You sit up and look around the room. They’re not on the floor, or anywhere else for that matter.

            “I used them to clean up the vomit after I turned you on your side,” says Cell. “There was quite a lot.”

            “You used my good sheets to wipe up puke?!”

            “It was a pragmatic choice.”

            “There are paper towels in the kitchen! Those were my GOOD SHEETS!”

            “Would you rather I had just left the repulsive evidence of your excess on the floor?”

            “Yes! Because then I could have cleaned up without wrecking my GOOD SHEETS!!”

            He’s glaring again and it frightens you, but you’re also fucking pissed.

            “Listen! I get it. I get that you’re trying to be helpful. I get that this is a weird fucking situation for both of us. But you don’t know how anything works and all it does is stress me out when you try to help and it just makes more problems. Next time just…I don’t know, just wait for me to stop being unconscious before you do anything like this.”

            He looks about as angry as he did when he slapped you just a few minutes ago. His hands are balled into fists but he isn’t moving. You could stop yourself from going further, but you don’t want to.

            “Are you embarrassed?”

            “ _What?_ ”

            “Because you fucked up?”

            “I am not embarrassed. I have never been embarrassed and I never will be.”

            He definitely is. This could be very dangerous ground on which you’re treading. You’re both angry and it pains you to admit, even in the privacy of your own mind, that his anger is so much more powerful than your own. It might be prudent to steer him in a different direction, especially now that you know he has no aversion to hurting you even though it doesn’t “satisfy” him.

            “Well…th–thanks for the…water.”

            It’s a struggle to get the words out. His expression doesn’t really soften, but the fury goes out of it. Cell leans down and hovers in front of your face. He trails his fingers over your scalp and you shiver. Several seconds pass before he presses his lips to yours. He slips his tongue into your mouth. Flying on autopilot, you suck gently on his tongue and try not to shake too much. Cell nips at your lower lip before pulling away.

            “It’s nice to hear you say that, but it’s nicer when you say it and _mean_ it.”

            “It’s also nicer when you don’t taste like vomit,” he adds, spitting on the floor.

            _Fuckin' didn’t even know he had taste buds,_ you think.

            There are probably a lot of things he does or doesn’t have that you don’t know about. It occurs to you that you don’t really know how he experiences the world, or if his experience has anything in common with yours. Can he see in color? He can smell your hormones, but can he smell flowers or rot or fresh food? Can he eat? Can he dream? Forget dreaming, does he even sleep?

            “I’m going to dispose of that poison you drank earlier. Don’t try to talk me out of it.”

            He walks away slowly, looking over his shoulder as if expecting you to try to talk him out of it. Whatever. Getting shitfaced wasn’t a long-term solution anyway. Long-term. That’s a real nasty concept right about now.

            You scoot back against the headboard, still cocooned in towels, and reach for the glass of water sitting on your bedside table. Three big sips go a long way toward making you feel better. The headache’s not going to go away any time soon but at least you’re not going to die of dehydration.

            Hunger, though. Hunger is something to consider. You’re not hungry right this second but you know you will be soon, and your supplies have been greatly depleted by this whole misadventure. Another couple days and you’ll be out of food completely.

            If Cell wants to be helpful, then the least he can do is bring along a grocery list the next time he goes out to steal supplies. Feeling very much like a collaborator—like you’ve become too resigned to the state of things—you pull out the drawer of your bedside table and rummage around before extracting a notepad and a pen. You set the ice bundle down on the mattress and start writing. It’s not much trouble recreating the collection of food items you need from what you used to have delivered to your house before the whole abduction thing.

            Huh. The delivery service will notice you’re gone. It would be pretty hard for them to not notice that your entire actual house is missing. Whether Cell accounted for that or not it means that an ever-growing number of people must be aware of your disappearance. Maybe you’ll be found. Maybe, then, it makes you some kind of failure to even consider playing along with him, even if it’s for your own benefit.

            This is fucked up, isn’t it? You writing a grocery list for him. Like he’s your partner. Like it’s a chore for him to do. There’s no world in which this isn’t fucked up. His responsibility: groceries. Your responsibility: gestating an abomination.

            Oh, you don’t like thinking about that. Not at all. Has it happened already? Has something terrible taken root in the wet soil of your body? Will it eat you from the inside like a parasite?

            You pause, pen shaking in your grasp, before adding prenatal vitamins to the list. Maybe you won’t need them. Maybe they won’t help. Better safe than sorry. There are too many “maybes” in your life right now. You wish you were still drunk. You wish, as you have a thousand times now, that none of this were happening. If there’s any mercy in the universe maybe this will all turn out to be a strange and terrible dream.

            Right as you’re starting to consider how death would be preferable to your life at the moment, Cell walks back into the room brandishing the empty bottle of rectified spirits.

            “All gone,” he sneers.

            He drops the bottle on the floor but it doesn’t shatter because it’s plastic.

            “What are you doing?” he asks.

            “Groceries,” you reply. “I’m running low on everything. Give me one more minute and I’ll finish putting this list together.”

            Something totally unreadable passes through his face. He chuckles.

            “There’s no need of that. Just tell me what you need and I’ll bring it back.”

            “Well, I prefer to write a list. And I’m almost done. So. I’m gonna do that.”

            “A written list is totally unnecessary. Just tell me.”

            “Why shouldn’t I just write a list?” you ask.

            “Because I don’t want you to.”

            “…But why not?”

            Something incredible dawns on you: something truly fucking incredible. There are a lot of things he doesn’t know about, after all.

            “Cell…do you know how to read?”

            The second most awkward silence of the day descends upon the room.

            “Of course I can read,” he scoffs. “Several languages, in fact. If there are items you require you can just tell me and I will remember.”

            Seized by a wild mania, you flip the grocery list over and scrawl the word BUTTHOLE in giant capital letters.

            “Hey, what does this say? Read this to me,” you ask him.

            “No.”

            “I’ll call you ‘master’ if you read this out loud to me.”

            “I’m not going to play into something so juvenile such as–”

            “You can’t read.”

            “I didn’t say that.”  
            “ _You can’t fucking read._ ”

            “I fail to see how ANY of this is RELEVANT to our CURRENT SITU–”

            “YOU’RE FUCKING _ILLITERATE_. WHAT THE _FUCK_.”

            “ _WHY WOULD I NEED TO KNOW HOW TO READ?!_ ”

            The windows rattle in their frames when he screams at you. Small items all around the room levitate up into the air and then fall back with a clatter. Cell shuts his eyes and raises both hands to his temples before continuing at a more reasonable volume.

            “It wasn’t _necessary_. Why would I need to know how to read any of this planet’s written languages when I can destroy the world with a single blow? What could I _possibly_ glean from any of your species’ texts that would be of any value to me whatsoever?”

            He opens his eyes and fixes you with his usual glare.

            “I know enough. I can navigate my creator’s lab and access the recordings that tell me everything I could ever want or need to know. What else matters?”

            You open and close your mouth a couple times, struggling to come up with anything to say that won’t set him off. This is ridiculous.

            Something else occurs to you.

            “But then…how…how did you find me? How were you even able to find out my name or address if you can’t…”

            Cell smiles.

            “Do you really want to know?”

            He approaches the bed and picks up the cold bundle, pressing it to your bruised face and holding it there until you reach up to hold it yourself. Then he takes the pen and paper and sets them on the bedside table. His fingers are warm as he brushes strands of wet hair away from your face.

            “I’m sure you can figure it out, dear one. Use your imagination. Or…perhaps you shouldn’t. I don’t want to upset you any more than I already have.”

            Oh. Of course. He’s already left a trail of bodies behind him. You really should have known that that park ranger and that poor student weren’t the first victims in his mad pursuit of you. Hadn’t there been something in the news a while back? Something about a series of disappearances near where you used to work?

            He must have started near the TV station; it was the only place he had ever seen you before his death. You can easily picture him grabbing an unwary stranger out walking alone—maybe a broadcaster out on a smoke break, maybe a custodian working the night shift—interrogating them, killing them, using whatever information he gained to find another person, interrogating _them_ , and so on and so forth, leaving a grisly web of corpses until finally he found out what he needed to know about the intern who had quit Waves and Rocks so long ago.

            You can’t even say that he’s stopped since then. He’s already brought you groceries once. How did he know what to get, huh? Maybe Cell broke into a store at night and took a series of lucky guesses. Maybe no one had to die for your breakfast. Did his precious creator leave him a primer on human nutrition? An instructional “How to Tend to Your Brood Slave” video?

            There’s nothing in your gut but water but it’s still churning. It might be time for the second panic attack of the day, if you can muster up the energy.

            Cell lies down behind you and pulls you flush against his chest. You’re shaking. There are so many different things you’re trying not to think about right now that your thoughts are drowned in light and static. His voice reaches you as if through a thick haze.

            “You could teach me,” he murmurs.

            “What?”

            “You could teach me how to read.”

            “Why in the name of all that is holy would I do that?”

            His left thumb is making small circles on your chest.

            “It would bring us closer.”

            “That’s a very strong argument for me not doing it.”

            He must be rolling his eyes. It sounds like he is.

            “Be logical. You have no way of escaping me or foiling my plans. I’m not part of your life anymore; I _am_ your life. It would be much easier for you if you would just accept that this is the way things are.”

            “Don’t say that,” you mutter.

            “The sooner you accept the truth the better. I can wait. It’s of little consequence to me. I just want you to be honest with yourself.”

            He punctuates the statement with a kiss on the nape of your neck.

            “You don’t know that nothing could change. You don’t know that this is forever.”

            Cell props himself up on his right elbow and looms over you. You tilt your head so the cold pack obscures the sight of him.

            “Come now, do you really think you could escape? It took the combined efforts of nearly a dozen of Earth’s greatest warriors to subdue me. You’re alone. You’re fragile. You’re only hurting yourself by continuing to push me away. Tell me, how would you stop me? Tell me, dear one. I want to know.”

            “I don’t have to tell you anything,” you say, but your voice is breaking, and tears are flowing unbidden from your eyes.

            After looming for the better part of a minute, Cell lies back down and folds his arms around you again.

            “This is not the meeting of an unstoppable force and an immovable object.”

            His lips are brushing against your ear with every syllable. His voice is soft but not whispering.

            “I have already moved you, in every sense of the word. My goals are as good as met. It’s only a matter of time, dear one.”

            You really are like a rat in a cage. No, not quite: more like a rat in a cage at the bottom of a mineshaft in an abandoned and irradiated country, at the mercy of an insane and possessive predator. You don’t want to think about how trapped you are, or about how hopeless the situation is. It would be easier to focus on how warm his arms are or how hard his chest plating is, even through two layers of towels.

            “Am I going to die from this?”

            “From the pregnancy?”

            He nuzzles his face against your wet hair and your stomach drops.

            “No. I don’t think so. It’s not designed that way. That wouldn’t be terribly efficient. It will _change_ you, but it will not kill you.”

            He kisses down your neck and stops where your collarbone meets your shoulder.

            “I’m glad that it won’t,” he says. “It would be a shame if our time together were cut short like that.”

            “I don’t know if I believe you.”

            “Why would I lie?”

            “You’ve lied to me before. You’ve…you literally told me to my face that you lied to me. Remember? That first time?”

            “Oh, of course. I had forgotten. I’m not lying _now_. I wouldn’t without good reason. I didn’t start to like you until you spat in my face anyway.”

            That would be funny if…well, no, actually, you can’t really imagine a scenario in which it would be funny.

            “Go to sleep. You must be exhausted.”

            It isn’t time for that, and you don’t think you’d be able to fall asleep with this monster cuddling up on you, but somehow you do. It takes a while but the warmth and the blessed silence once he stops talking lulls you into a fitful rest. You dream about running on an endless field of asphalt. Your legs are strong as iron and faster than any normal human’s, but you’re stuck running forever, never to reach your destination: a distant airplane that is always just about to take off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is basically a horror story at this point right? This is a nightmare scenario. It keeps getting longer and longer. I know how it's supposed to end but more and more dumb shit keeps happening before that. Anyways, it's blizzarding here and I chugged a Red Bull so I got super rowdy and that's why this chapter is landing a week and a half ahead of schedule. DO NOT EXPECT THIS TO HAPPEN AGAIN. Knowing my commitment to regularity the next one will be out in 2019.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> if you want boning you'll have to wait for the next chapter  
> this is just some kind of weird slice of life interlude

You wake in the morning when Cell calls your name. Shaky with hunger, you stagger out of bed and pull an oversized sweatshirt on over your nakedness. Your head is throbbing a bit. You find him in the kitchen with a grocery bag tucked against his chest like a holy infant. He must have left when you were asleep.

            Without a word you take the bag from him and sort through the contents. Just about everything you put on the list is in there. You put the perishables in the fridge and make a mental catalog of the rest. He even got the prenatal vitamins. Ugh.

            “You kill someone for all this?”

            Cell puts a hand on your shoulder.

            “Do you really want to know, dear o–”

            “Yes. I do. And don’t call me that.”

            He wraps his arms around you and rests his chin on top of your head.

            “Yes, I killed someone. It was necessary. I needed someone literate to acquire supplies in a discreet manner, and if I had let them live they would have told someone else about what happened to them.”

            Confirming what you already suspected inspires little feeling in you. That’s still better than feeling nothing.

            “Did they suffer?”

            He doesn’t answer.

            “Well?”

            He sighs.

            “I did not prolong the moment of their death, no. If it makes you feel any better, I was able to memorize the list. In the future I can obtain these items without enlisting help.”

            You pull away from him. He lets you pull away. The silverware drawer rattles when you open it to get a fork. Fishing through the grocery bag, you pull out a can of peaches and rip the top off. After several days of sporadic and unhealthy meals, the first bite of canned fruit is delicious in a way that honestly defies description. You wolf down half the can before you have the sense to sit down. You nearly finish it before you consider the gastrointestinal consequences of eating so much preserved fruit on an empty stomach.

            Cell stares and you ignore him.

            The next course is three slices of white bread straight from the bag. Fuck it. Fuck everything. Any senses of propriety or “how adults should eat” you once had are long gone now. You’re a starving fox and this food is an unprotected henhouse.

            Cell has four basic facial expressions: Unreadable, The Smirk, Furious, and Emotional Existential Terror. Right now he’s in “unreadable” mode. This is probably the first time he’s ever watched a human eating up close. Maybe he’s disgusted by it. One can only hope.

            Your bread frenzy comes to an end. Now that you’ve crossed from “not hungry” to “quite full” it’s time to think of other things.

            “I might have a job for you, assuming you didn’t fuck up my requests.”

            Rummaging through the bag yields exactly the thing you were hoping for.

            “You wanna make yourself useful? Here.”

            He takes the tube of aquaphor from your outstretched hand. His eyes widen the tiniest bit when you stand up to strip off the sweatshirt and lay it on the seat of the kitchen stool.

            “You left a lot of cuts on my back that I can’t reach. Rub a little of that stuff into them so they’ll heal quicker. Just a _little_ bit. It doesn’t work as well if there’s too much.”

            You sit yourself on the soft fabric on the stool and lean over the kitchen table. The old wood is chilly against your breasts. The very lightest of touches ghost up and down your back: uselessly light touches.

            “Oookay, that’s too light. That’s not gonna help anything. Just...here. Let me show you.”

            You sit up and take the tube from him. He watches, impassive. Squeezing a tiny dollop onto your pointer finger, you rub the clear goo into one of the cuts you can actually reach, pressing down on the wound like you’re finger painting. It stings but you know it’s worth it.

            “You’re grimacing,” he says.

            “Yeah, well, healing hurts sometimes.”

            “I don’t want to hurt you.”

            His face is still unreadable. Yours, however, has gone from grimacing to scowling.

            “It’s a bit fucking late for that. Now do it the way I showed you or just...fuck off somewhere else, I dunno.”

            His touches are still a little too light for your taste but he does a serviceable job. He works the aquaphor into the wounds with a care and a slowness that would be pleasant were it not for three factors: 1) it’s Cell 2) your back is crisscrossed with painfully sensitive cuts 3) he was the one who put the cuts there in the first place.

            “I am continually surprised,” he murmurs, “at how much I enjoy tending to you. I don’t think it’s just because I like you, specifically, either.”

            “Is that so,” you mutter, unable to keep the disdain out of your voice.

            “It _is_ so. I’m learning new ways to be powerful. Before everything went wrong, I always felt strong. I knew that I was the most powerful and that no one could dare threaten me. Fighting was the proof. I don’t have that anymore. I will again, soon, but until then…I have this. I have you. Taking care of someone weak and helpless makes me feel strong. I never knew it could be so enjoyable to nurture something other than myself.”

            You snort.

            “I coulda told you that. Every bully gets off to picking on someone smaller than them.”

            “I’m not ‘picking on you,’ this is so much more than that. I’ve chosen you for a higher purpose.”

            “Yeah, uh, don’t hit me again, like, please don’t hurt me for saying this, but I don’t think there’s any higher purpose that involves what you’ve been doing to me.”

            He halts his ministrations. Bone-white hands pin your wrists to the table. It’s depressingly easy to ignore the impulse to struggle. He isn’t holding you tight but you know it’s pointless to try to pull away.

            Cell places his chin on your left shoulder.

            “You’ll see,” he says. “After I absorb our offspring and obliterate my enemies, then you’ll understand. Once I’ve achieved my ends you’ll see how important all this is.”

            He kisses his way across the back of your neck until he’s on your right shoulder.

            “How important _you_ are.”

            _I don’t want to be important like that_ , you think.

            “I could take you again right now,” he mutters. “Right on this table. I could have you writhing underneath me in seconds.”

            You’re shivering, and the dull ache between your legs twinges when you fidget on the stool.

            “I’m still sore from yesterday.”

            “Mm. I know. Don’t worry, I won’t do that. Not yet. I can be patient for you. I have plenty of time.”

            He removes his hands, spins you around, and hoists you up to sit on the table. You brace yourself with your arms straight and your hands splayed out behind you. His lips are soft on yours. His left hand slips a little on your shoulder, still slick with healing salve, and his right squeezes your ass. When you don’t pull away he lets his left hand drift down to join its brother, stroking and kneading.

            Strange and disturbing but true: making out is your preferred method of interacting with him by a considerable margin. You might think that kissing Cell would be a traumatizing experience at this point, but it’s actually pretty nice. By far the most underrated aspect of it is that you don’t have to look at his awful face, and since his mouth is occupied, he can’t say anything. Him shutting the fuck up is absolutely priceless. Also, as long as he’s right in front of you, you can be sure he’s not off committing murders. The fact that he’s not a terrible kisser—he’s improved by leaps and bounds since he surprised you that first night by the campfire—is really just the icing on the cake.

            You think about this while he swipes his tongue lazily through your mouth. Cell slides his hands up the sides of your body until he’s palming both your cheeks, just barely touching the bruised side of your face. He pulls away and strokes one thumb across your lower lip. A faint sheen of saliva lingers on his mouth, and his pink eyes are clouded with lust.

            “Now,” he says, “I was thinking–”

            Nope. Not allowed. He was silent and you’re not ready for that to end. Before he can get another word out you lunge forward and crash your lips back against his, wrapping your arms around his neck and your legs around his torso in one insistent motion. He grunts in surprise, frozen for a moment before taking a vicious hold of your hair and kissing you back almost painfully hard. Unfortunately, it doesn’t last. Cell tilts your head back with the hand in your hair and grins.

            “You’re sending mixed messages, dear one.”

            “Just shut up.”

            “Mm, no. Is that really what you want me to do?”

            “I want you to stop talking.”

            “Maybe if you ask politely.”

            “No.”

            He puts on The Smirk and your headache surges back out of dormancy.

            “I’m not trying to fuck you right now. I told you I’m sore. I don’t like looking at your face, and I don’t like listening to you talk. We both like kissing, so if you’re gonna be this physically close to me, it might as well be like this.”

            Cell frowns and releases his grip on you before stepping back.

            “That’s not what I was hoping to hear.”

            He crosses his arms, looking not unlike a child who’s just been told off. It’s strange. He would deny it if you asked, but you know it bothers him that you don’t like him: that you aren’t awed by him, that you don’t enjoy his company, that there’s nothing he can do by himself to change any of that. He could gather some magic artifacts and wish for you to like him but that’s not the same. In the best-case scenario for you—if you somehow escape him and his mad ambitions—you still have the whole rest of your life. If all his plans go off without a hitch he still won’t have you: not the way he wants to.

            You’ll never give him what he wants, and you’ll never sympathize with him, but you still feel the tiniest pang of empathy when you think about his situation. It’s more pity than it is empathy, really. Maybe you’re losing your mind to feel that way. You read about trauma bonding once. Isn’t this that? Maybe you aren’t losing your mind, and it isn’t so terrible to have complicated feelings for someone who’s hurt you so deeply.

            Even thinking of him as “someone” gives you pause. Is Cell a person? Or is he just a Thing: a chaotic assemblage of DNA and chemical reactions gone horribly awry?

            It’s probably better not to dwell too much on that. You lower yourself down from the table and pull your sweatshirt back on.

            “I’m going for a walk. Come with if you want.”

            “Do you want me to?”

            “It’s not like I can stop you.”

            “Do you _want_ me to?”

            You sigh.

            “Not really, but it wouldn’t bother me if you tagged along. I’m not going to lie and say yes, please, come with me. Follow me or don’t.”

            He doesn’t at first. You get all the way to the front door and step into your boots before you hear the familiar squeaking of his feet against the floor. Cane in hand, you make your way outside and pause to take in your surroundings. The sun is shining. Birds are singing. They stop when Cell emerges from the house. It really is uncanny how they sense him.

            “Shut the door behind you. I don’t need any _more_ bugs in there."

            If that remark bothers him or makes him smile, you don’t know. You pick a direction at random and don’t look back. Even now, after all this horror, it still feels nice to be outside with the breeze at your back and the unplumbed forest ahead of you.

            In the trees it’s cool enough that you’re glad to be wearing a long sweatshirt. The air smells pleasantly of old leaves and the ground is spongy underfoot. It’s not the easiest terrain for a disabled person but it’s little trouble with no destination in mind. You just wander. If there’s an obstacle too big to step over, you go around it, or change direction. Wherever you go, Cell follows. He keeps his mouth shut for a surprisingly long time.

            “Do you know where you’re going?”

            You look over your shoulder at him and shrug.

            “Nope.”

            “You’re going to get lost.”

            “No, I won’t.”

            “Really.”

            “Yeah, really.”

            You pause to touch the rough bark of a dead, blackened tree. Hard to tell if it burned or if it was struck by lightning.

            “I can’t get lost,” you tell him. “You always know exactly where I am.”

            Your foot catches on a root as you turn away from the tree. Before you get even halfway into a stumble Cell catches you and scoops you up into his arms.

            “You shouldn’t be so careless,” he hisses.

            “I just tripped. That’s nothing.”

            His mouth is set in a thin line.

            “This isn’t safe. I’m taking you back to the house.”

            “Oh, come on. Put me down.”

            Cell ignores you and stares straight ahead.

            “You know, it’s totally possible for me to trip and fall _indoors_. That’s not just something that happens outside.”

            “It’s not that,” he says. “It’s the way you’re acting. Wandering without a destination, without keeping track of your steps. I don’t like it.”

            You roll your eyes right as he looks down and his expression darkens.

            “Don’t roll your eyes at me! I’m not going to tolerate your self-destructive behavior any longer.”

            “You gotta be fuckin kidding me.”

            “I’ve never been more serious.”

            “Oh. Okay. Fine. Yeah. Leaving me out in the woods during a rainstorm for hours and hours, where I could have gotten pneumonia and literally died, that’s fine. I go for one directionless walk and suddenly my health matters to you.”

            “Will you let that go already? It was an appropriate punishment, and I’m not going to do it again.”

            “Holy fucking shit,” is all you can manage to say after sputtering in fury for almost a solid minute.

_Will I let it go already? Will I LET IT GO ALREADY? NO I FUCKING WILL NOT,_ you think to yourself, grinding your teeth to nubs. _I will let NOTHING go. You are a monster. You have made my life a living hell and have not done even the smallest fraction of a single thing to make amends for the horror you wreaked on me OR the rest of the world. Will I let it go! Holy fuck!_

_And fucking FURTHERMORE, maybe if SOMEONE hadn’t poured out my alcohol, I could engage in my ‘self-destructive’ behavior like an adult. Or you know what else, maybe if SOMEONE hadn’t KIDNAPPED me and MURDERED people and ASSAULTED me I WOULDN’T BE DEALING WITH SELF-DESTRUCTIVE IMPULSES._

_If you hadn’t tried to destroy the fucking world I never would have gone off to live alone in the first place._

            Several paragraphs of internal ranting later, Cell returns to your house. He sets you down gently on the floor and then stands in his trademark arms crossed pose blocking the front door. As if you might try to get around him to leave. If you had a more traditional death wish, you just might.

            It isn’t even midmorning and already you’re counting down the hours until you can go to sleep and forget about everything. That mild headache from earlier is flaring higher. These days you have two moods: bad and worse. Right now is definitely a "worse" time.

            “So, what, I’m under house arrest now?”

            “Yes, until your behavior improves,” he says.

            For a moment you consider uncorking everything you have broiling inside of you and screaming at him. It might make him angry, or maybe it would summon forth The Smirk.

            “Whatever,” you say. “Fine. Who cares. This might as well happen. Who gives a shit. I’m gonna go decompose.”

            “What?”

            He follows you back to your bedroom, where you unearth a spare blanket from under bedframe, shake it out onto the mattress, and then crawl under it without replacing the top sheet. You wait for him to say something. You wait for him to climb onto the bed next to you and invade your personal space. You wait so long for him to do anything at all that you drift off to sleep, passing the rest of the morning in a strange fog of dark, incomprehensible visions.

  * • •



When you wake up a few hours later Cell is gone again. You look all through the house and out all the windows but he’s nowhere you can see. His presence is still very much felt, however, because at some point during your unplanned nap he retrieved a huge rock, brought it inside, and wedged it against the front door. If you brace yourself against the wall and pushed with your feet you might be able to move it, but you know it’s not worth the effort. A cursory investigation reveals that Cell’s done nothing to block the back door or any of the windows. Either he knows about the other exits and the front door rock is purely symbolic, or he doesn’t understand how other doors and windows work. Both possibilities are terrible.

            But, you can’t fixate on that right now. Your intestines are angry with you for what you ate earlier. Unsure of your solitude, but unable to stave off the inevitable, you run to the bathroom and have an absolutely wretched time dealing with the aftermath of eating peaches and white bread on an empty, hungover stomach.

            Half an hour later Cell still has not appeared. It makes a kind of sense that you feel his absence more keenly now that you know what he’s up to. Maybe he won’t come back until…ugh. Until it’s time to try again.

            You fix yourself a balanced lunch that probably won’t touch off a violent conflict in your guts: a meal that an adult human being would eat. You eat it slowly and Cell is still not there. While returning an unfinished vegetable to the fridge, your gaze lingers on the bowl of poisonous but not lethally poisonous mushrooms in the crisper. But not for long. You’re still not completely sure what to do with those. It just feels good to have them close by.

            At a little bit of a loss, you change out of the long sweatshirt and into loose pants and a shirt. Pace back and forth. Straighten the rug. Stare out your bedroom window. Still no Cell.

            For the next hour you try to relax and read a book—some dull, mawkish text you loved in high school but have since come to regard with embarrassment—but it just doesn’t take. You can’t focus on the words. You might as well be trying to translate ancient runes for all the good this is doing.

            After you put the book away you make a single token attempt to connect your laptop to the internet, like you do every day. Of course there’s no signal. You click on the chat app that you use to talk to your friends and read through the archived messages. There’s one from just ten minutes before you were abducted. Tears prick at your eyes. You shut the laptop and struggle against the urge to smash it on the ground. What’s the point of keeping it, anyway?

            For just a moment you crumble under the weight of your loneliness and despair. And then it passes. As of late you’ve been feeling emotions in a briefer and shallower way than you do normally. That can’t be good, but it’s not like there’s much you can do about it at the moment.

            Unable to think of anything to do, productive or otherwise, you go to the nook with the TV and the loveseat and put a disc of an old screwball comedy in the disc player.

            The opening credits have just finished when Cell speaks up from behind you—“Didn’t you watch this one recently?”—and you scream at the top of your lungs.

            “Fucking GOD! Shit! Don’t sneak up on me like that.”

            He just stares, arms crossed. What is it with him and crossing his fucking arms?

            “Where were you, anyway?” you ask.

            “Around,” he says.

            Glaring, you turn back to the movie. When you look over your shoulder a couple minutes later, he’s still standing there.

            “Hey. This sucks. I don’t want you looming over me. Come on. And don’t ask me if I _want_ you here.”

            You scoot over to one side and gesture at the now empty couch seat. Cell hesitates, and then moves to sit next to you. He has to elevate his useless wings until they’re sticking almost straight back to do it.

            On the screen, two men in identical outfits dance as if each is the other’s reflection in a mirror.

            “So, this is human entertainment?” Cell asks. “I can’t say I see the appeal.”

            “Just shut up and watch the damn movie.”

            A minor miracle occurs. Cell shuts up. He doesn’t keep his hands to himself—first pulling you to lean against him and then outright yanking you into his uncomfortable lap, stroking your head and neck until you relax and stop shuddering—but he doesn’t say a single word for the rest of the movie, and he doesn’t try to fuck you either. In these strange and troubled times, that’s really all you can ask for.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this is how it ends, folks
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZn3aZddrKQ
> 
> _and I know what you're saying_  
>  and I know what you're saying it for  
> but I'm not listening  
> I'm not listening anymore 

The next morning, Cell wakes you as softly as any human lover would. He doesn’t ask. By now he doesn’t have to. You’re long past the point at which it would make sense to make even a token show of resistance.

            This time, he’s gentle. He doesn’t even smirk when you’re gasping underneath him. Technically this is better than the alternative. But only technically. It’s all the same in the end: every possible type of violation spiraling toward the same horrific climax.

            In the aftermath, he rolls to one side and runs a hand up and down your hip. It doesn’t even disgust you.

            “Something’s just occurred to me,” you murmur. “Frankenstein.”

            “Hm?”

            “That first night you talked about Frankenstein. The book. But you can’t read. Did your creator just…implant that knowledge in you?”

            “Yes. He thought it was important.”

            “He thought the plot of an ancient science fiction book was more important than having you know how to read.”

            “He wanted me to understand my form as well as my function, and he thought that the narrative of that particular story would explain more than a straightforward recitation of the facts.”

            “Listen, not that I’m looking to get beat up or anything, but that doesn’t paint a super flattering portrait of him or of what he thought of you.”

            Cell laughs once, and moves his hand to your ass.

            “Oh, he didn’t leave it at a plot summary. In the video he left behind for me he made sure to stress that _my_ uniqueness made me extraordinary. I am alone of all the creatures that trod this planet, and it is _wonderful_. I was made for a purpose, and it is _glorious_.”

            You think that perhaps it’s best not to question that reasoning any further. Not right now, at least. Maybe later.

            The rest of the morning is unremarkable. Unlike yesterday, Cell never leaves your side. He shadows you in the kitchen when you fix a paltry breakfast and stands in his usual pose as you eat. If he were anyone else, you might call the silence companionable.

            Ordinarily this is when you would go for a walk, but that’s not allowed anymore. You take a book to the couch and pretend to read for about half an hour until Cell asks why you aren’t turning the pages.

            “Ah fuck it. I’m going crazy with boredom but I can’t focus. Do you wanna watch something? I don’t even know why I’m asking.”

            That’s how you end up watching another movie in Cell’s lap. This time it’s a work of psychological horror, about a family with dark secrets, cycles of trauma, and doing bad things to stop yourself from doing worse ones. You wonder if Cell gets it, but not enough to actually ask. As before, he says nothing, only making the occasional appreciative noise during violent scenes and brushing his fingers through your hair.

            Sitting there, in the proverbial belly of the beast, you think to yourself that existing in the same space as him follows the same logic as a recurring nightmare. You run and never escape, hit and never make an impact, scream and struggle and plead and insult without swaying him in any manner. He’s always right behind you, even when he’s not. Cell is the pursuing figure that can never be outpaced, the past horror that never ends but only repeats itself again and again until the trauma is burned into you—like a paused video left frozen on a television screen for days on end, something brief made eternal—until you are nothing but a passive vessel for his violence.

  * • •



The credits are rolling. Cell’s fingers are interlaced with yours.

_I have to end this_ , you think.

_I have to put a stop to this before it’s too late_.

_Even if it’s already too late. I have to try._

_This has gone on way too fucking long._

            “So,” you begin, voice hushed. “Can I say something to you? And please don’t…hit me. It’s just a suggestion.”

            “What is it, dear one?”

            “I just…ok. I need you to listen to me. Can you do that? Can we…can we talk person to person instead of captive to captor? Just for a minute.”

            He doesn’t respond.

            “I need you to say yes or no, it’s scary to talk to you when you don’t say anything.”

            “Yes, fine, say what you want to say.”

            “Ok. Uh. Speaking to you on the assumption that you are a person with wants and desires who is capable of making choices, and for the love of god I do not mean that in a condescending way…for once…you really…Cell, you really don’t have to be doing any of this.”

            He doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t tense up either.

            “You told me you don’t have any other purpose than to do what you’re doing but…no one has a ‘purpose.’ I don’t have one. Just because you were made for something doesn’t mean you have to do it. It’s not too late for you to leave and live the rest of your l–”

            Cell lays his hand over your mouth until you fall silent.

            “I made my choice,” he says, tilting his head to kiss the back of your neck.

            “I will not fail again. I will cleanse this world of imperfection and finally find some peace. You must know you can’t convince me otherwise.”

            You extricate your right hand from his and rub your temples.

            “I don’t know that, actually. I know you haven’t decided what you’re going to do with me if you actually succeed at all of this. You could make other choices.”

            Cell pulls your hand back and presses his mouth to where your thumb meets your wrist, before wrapping his arms around you and pulling you tighter against him.

            “You really think I can change.”

            He doesn’t sound smug at all. He almost sounds surprised.

            “Anyone can change. If you haven’t even considered not doing what it is that you’re doing then that’s…sad. If I had less of a death wish I’d shut up but I honestly think it’s really lazy to just stick to this path in spite of everything. Imagine you’re not you. Imagine you’re anyone else. What would you do if you weren’t powerful?”

            “I would train until I became powerful.”

            “Oh for…ok. Imagine—just try—imagine that wasn’t an option. Ok? What if you couldn’t? What if none of it would ever make a difference? What would you do with your life?”

            “I would find a way to become stronger.”

            You draw in a deep breath and count to ten.

            “Ok. Maybe I’m not being clear. I want you to imagine a hypothetical scenario in which there was literally no possibility of you ever getting what you want. Can you do that?”

            “I can, but I won’t. Such a situation will never arise.”

            It’s like talking to a fucking mold colony. A terrible silence settles over the two of you. It’s quiet enough that you can hear that tripping, mechanical rhythm in his chest where a heartbeat would be in a human being.

            “Ok. Ok. Fine. Whatever. Forget about that. Let’s talk about…fuck, I don’t know.”

            “Hm, no. You can talk if you want. I’m going to do something else.”

            Cell unfolds his arms and shucks off your pants and underwear. A single faint twist of nausea wriggles in your gut. You expect him to pin you to the couch but instead he swivels around so he’s leaning against the arm with his useless wings lying flat under him.

            “Sit on me,” he says, sliding you up his chest.

            “Oh, come on.”

            “Not a request,” he adds, before swinging your thighs up around his head and pressing your sex against his mouth.

            Sighing in resignation, you grit your teeth and clamp your hands on the two peaks of his weird head crown. Sitting with your thighs on the arm of the couch and your hands on the most outward extension of his exoskeleton makes it feel like being eaten out by some kind of ergonomic luxury chair. You dig your fingernails against the unyielding chitin of his head and he hums against your clitoris.

            Keeping your head clear and disconnecting from the usual bad thoughts isn’t as difficult as it has been. You can’t convince yourself that this is only happening to a body you inhabit—this is happening to _you_ , you _are_ this body—but at the same time it’s getting harder to maintain the constant revulsion and dissociation. This is happening. Cell is a monster who means you nothing but harm and has irrevocably poisoned your life. What he’s doing right now feels very good. None of these things are mutually exclusive.

            While Cell works you over with his mouth, you consider your options. You don’t have a lot of them. The obvious one is suicide, but you know that’s not a real choice and it never has been. If you could be sure of getting it done before could intervene it might be more appealing, but…no. Even now, after everything, you don’t want to die. You just want this to stop. Being trapped out here has made you realize that you have a lot to lose. Whether your life is actually worth living is debatable but it’s worth fighting for the simple choice to live it at all.

            You can’t escape by yourself. Even if Cell wasn’t here your only means of transportation is your own two legs and those are unreliable at the best of times. There are people who are capable of subduing Cell but right now you have no way of contacting them or anyone else in the outside world. You can’t leave, and you can’t tell anyone to come get you, so…you have to convince Cell to take you back to civilization. He would never do that unless you were dying, or if there was something wrong with you that he couldn’t fix himself.

            Or, rather, if he _thought_ you were dying. You don’t actually have to kill yourself; you just have to trick him into thinking that you’ve killed yourself. That’s where the blue mushrooms come in: _Lepiota Ipecacuanha_ , the vomit cap. He can’t read, so it’s not like he could look in the reference book and see that they’re not actually lethal.

            (Cell’s lips and tongue are doing unholy things. His hands are gripping your ass _just so_. Makes it hard to think.)

            It can’t be as simple as just wolfing down a bunch of fungus and waiting for the vomiting to start. However, if Cell had healing powers that definitely would have come up by now. What about his creator’s lab, though? Is there some medical potion in there for poison? Some kind of…magic healing item? You really can’t discount that possibility. A super-powered bug-man came back to life in deep space after being dead for fifteen years. Quite literally anything can happen.

            _If_ there’s nothing in the lab that can heal you, and _if_ you can eat a bunch of the vomit caps without giving away that you’re plotting something, and _if_ the vomit caps are still viable after being in your fridge for days, then you _might_ be able to get him to take you to a hospital, thus exposing himself to the world. Assuming he doesn’t just wait for you to die when you reveal what you’ve done.

            If, if, if. Too many ifs. Every path forward is dark and indistinct.

            When Cell slides two fingers inside you a little sound escapes your throat. You squeeze your thighs against his head. He presses his free hand harder against your ass and draws you even tighter to his mouth. You’re shaking, Cell’s fingers winding you up in steady increments, and when you climax it’s with a sob.

            He keeps his fingers hilted in you for another couple minutes, feeling you clench and twitch around him until at last your body stills. You draw in deep breaths through your nose, focusing on the air going in and out, readying yourself for what’s to come and finding that you don’t need to ready yourself that much at all.

            Cell slides you back down his chest, adjusts his posture, and deposits you back in his lap where you started. His dick hasn’t emerged from the dark panel on his crotch but you know it must be a matter of seconds.

            Cell hums against your scalp, his wet lips picking up strands of your hair as he speaks.

            “You should make yourself some food. It must be time for that again.”

            You don’t want to ask. You have to ask.

            “You’re…done? You’re not going to…?”

            He tilts your chin up. There’s the fucking smirk again.

            “Do you want me to?”

            “No,” you almost whisper.

            “Then I won’t,” he declares.

            Cell pushes you to stand on the floor before standing up himself.

            “Ok. Fine. I’ll bite. Why not? Me not wanting to has never stopped you before. Why not now?”

            “Maybe I’ve changed,” he sneers.

            “Please just tell me what’s up.”

            He steps up close and rubs his hands lightly up and down your sides.

            “It’s because I don’t need to. It’s good news, dear one. _You’ve_ changed. I can smell it. You’ve quickened.”

            “I’ve what?”

            “You’re pregnant.”

            You take a big step back.

            “ALREADY?”

            He nods, beaming.

            “I…I didn’t think it would happen…so fast, are you sure? I don’t _feel_ any different. Are you sure? Fucking god, it’s only been a couple days, how can you be sure?”

            “I was designed to recognize that smell, just as I was designed to recognize the different stages of your hormonal cycle. ”

            There’s no time. It’s too late. You have to do something _now_. The time for strategizing was weeks ago: years ago, decades even. You have to fucking do something.

            You stagger away from him; he lets you go.

            “Already?” you ask again. “Fuck. Fuck! I thought…I thought I’d have more…more time to get used to the idea.”

            You laugh once, disbelieving, before walking away from the couch and into the kitchen.

            _This is very fucking bad_ , you think.

_Deep breaths. Deep breaths. You’re rattled. That’s fine. Use it. Use this anxiety to cover up the other anxiety about getting caught trying to poison yourself. You can still try to pull one over on him! Deep breaths. Deeeeeep breaths. Don’t faint before you get the bowl out. He doesn’t know anything about food. He doesn’t know humans don’t just eat mushrooms out of the damn fridge. Be cool. Not too cool._

            You open the fridge, pretend to scan the shelves, and pull the bowl of blue lepiotes out of the crisper. They don’t look so good. The ones in the middle have gone pale and bloated and the ones around the sides are desiccated. You take six caps in various stages of dehydration and saturation and place them on a plate. If you _only_ eat mushrooms it might look suspicious. With that in mind, you add a couple slices of bread, then fashion the ingredients into history’s worst sandwich.

            Cell watches you. You ask him again if he’s sure, if he’s really sure, and again he nods. You pick up the sandwich and put it back down again.

            “I can’t fucking handle this.”

            He sighs and sidles up real close.

            “There’s nothing you need to ‘handle,’ dear one. You just need to live.”

            “I’m not ready,” you whimper. “I’m not _ready_. I don’t want this thing inside me. I’m _scared_ , I…”

            _I’m not ready to do this. I’m so fucking scared this won’t work and then I really will be stuck with you forever. I’m so scared that you_ won’t _kill me when all this is done. You’ll hurt people and it’ll be my fault because I couldn’t stop you. I don’t deserve this. I’m so FUCKING scared. I shouldn’t have to deal with_ any _of this._

            He wraps his arms around you and you start to cry.

            “Shh, dear one. Calm down. Everything will be fine.”

            “Don’t…no it won’t. You’re going to hurt people.”

            “That doesn’t matter right now. Don’t think about that.”

            You sob. He buries his face in your hair.

            “I don’t know what to do,” you whisper.

            _I know what I have to do. But I don’t think it will work._

            “You should eat.”

            “No, I–”

            Cell grabs you by the wrist and places your hand on the atrocious meal.

            “I’m not going to let you neglect your diet now that I know you’re carrying something of mine. Eat the food or I’ll force you.”

            It doesn’t taste as bad as it looks. The lepiotes have an abominable texture but only a very faint, earthy flavor. In fact, they’re so inoffensive it makes you wonder if the guidebook was wrong, or if you misidentified them. Maybe nothing will happen. Maybe you somehow confused them with mushrooms that really are deadly.

            Only one way to find out.

            Once you’ve choked down the whole sandwich Cell steps away. You stay sitting there for another ten minutes or so, tapping your fingers on the table and fiddling with a scab on your cruddy left knee.

            “I could have that fixed, you know,” Cell says out of nowhere.

            “Huh?”

            “Your leg. After I kill my enemies and gather the Dragon Balls, I could use one of the wishes to have you physically restored.”

            You side-eye him and slide off your chair.

            “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

            He follows you back to your bedroom. You lie down on your side, facing away from him. He doesn’t try to join you but he doesn’t leave either.

            “I just need to think,” you murmur.

            You can’t think. Your brain is a shaken snow globe, and it takes all your concentration just to keep your breathing under control.

            After about twenty minutes, a slight pressure emerges in your gut. It just feels like regular gas, though. You burp and it dissipates. It doesn’t stay dissipated for long.

            After another half hour of doing nothing but breathing steadily and ignoring the murderer standing in the corner, the pressure in your gut has shifted from discomfort to an actual stabbing pain, like the worst food poisoning you’ve ever had. Come to think of it, food poisoning is pretty much what you’ve done to yourself. Something is happening. The maelstrom swirling in your brain is clearing up, condensing inward to a single core of purpose.

            You grimace at the pain, swallowing hard and feeling the contents of your stomach roil and slosh. Not trusting yourself to speak, you raise one hand and beckon Cell over before patting the bed next to you. He lies down facing you and you push him onto his back. Very gingerly, your breath hitching and teeth clenching, you sit up and position yourself over his crotch. When you settle a red-hot gush of pain erupts in your stomach and you can’t keep it out of your expression. Cell says your name with genuine concern.

            “You know what?” you mutter. “I never thought my name could sound so disgusting until I heard you say it. That’s neat.”

            Cell glares at you. The pain subsides, shifts somewhere further down as more gas escapes from your throat in a belch.

            “If you really think I’m just going to sit and mope and let you do this to me then you’re even stupider than I thought, and you’re already the stupidest motherfucker I’ve ever met.”

            Cell’s handsome features twist in frustration.

            “Oh, are we back to this again?” he sneers. “Why is it so difficult for you to–”

            You place one finger on his mouth to shush him, his frustration turning to surprise and then anger as you continue to speak.

            “I tried to talk sense into you and you wouldn’t fucking listen. I quit. I’m done trying to…tolerate this. I’m not gonna let myself get used to this anymore. I’m getting out of here and there’s nothing you can do to stop me.”

            Eyes narrowed to slits, Cell moves your hand away.

            “Oh no,” he croons with mock concern. “Has my dear one had a mental break?”

            “Nope. You pushed me too far.”

            “And what exactly are you intending to do, sweetness?”

            He snatches up your arms and pulls you flat against his chest. You almost puke. Bile’s creeping up the back of your throat and you can smell copper.

            “Run away? You can barely walk, and I’ve outmaneuvered you at every turn. I must say, I’m disappointed in you. I thought maybe you were starting to–”

            “Nothing,” you grit out, every word a challenge in this position. “I’m not _going_ to do anything.”

            He starts to speak again but you cut him off.

            “Don’t interrupt me! I’m not going to _do_ anything because I’ve already _done_ it, you dumb fuck. It’s done. I…poisoned myself. I poisoned myself, and y-you know what? You watched me! You fucking _watched_ me do it.”

            Cell’s still smirking but he looks the tiniest bit confused.

            “What are you talking about?”

            You pull away from him and sit back up, swallowing the vomit back down with one hand over your mouth. You still have some things to say.

            “The mushrooms. You know? Holy shit, you don’t even know what a mushroom is. The stuff I ate about an hour ago? Remember that? Poisonous. Found ‘em in the woods. Read all about ‘em in one of my books, but you wouldn’t know anything about that.

            “You fucked up. You pushed me too fucking far, Cell. I’d rather die than keep living like this so that’s what I’m doing. It’s too late! It’s done.”

            The pain is turning from red-hot to white-hot, bubbling and roiling and squeezing tears from your eyes. You’re shaking. Cell says he doesn’t believe you but you don’t pay any attention.

            “You fucking took _everything_ from me. First it was my leg, then my p-peace of mind, then my whole goddamn LIFE. No. Not anymore. You–”

            You throw up in your mouth a little bit and have to stop to swallow it back down. Cell’s face has switched back to an expression of genuine concern. You can barely see him through the tears that are now streaming from your eyes.

            “You left me with this bullshit…Hobson’s choice and now I’m taking it. I’m taking the only…the only thing I have left away from you and that’s ME. So get used–”

            Your guts cut you off at long last by expelling a torrent of blood-red slime up your throat and out your mouth and nose. It splatters on Cell’s chest and he spasms in shock. His jaw drops. You get about two seconds to marvel at how much it really does look and smell like blood before another attack of vomiting seizes you. You try to aim for his face but it’s too difficult to keep your head up. Straining against everything happening in your body, you spit once and whisper to him.

            “Let me go or let me die.”

            That is, you would say that, except as soon as you get to the “or” Cell scoops you up in his arms and teleports the both of you somewhere very far away. The sudden change in atmosphere makes you vomit again, choking and sputtering as it wells up in your throat. The air is thinner. When you turn your head to spit out the red slime and clear your airway, you see the nasty substance splatter on immaculate white tiles.

            It certainly doesn’t look like a secret laboratory. You’re on some kind of patio outdoors. Three people are seated at a wrought-iron table playing a card game. Well…at least two of them are people. There’s a huge white cat, a pudgy, dark-skinned man in a turban, and a little green guy with two drooping antennae sprouting from his forehead. All of them are staring at you—or rather at Cell—with mingled expressions of shock and horror. The cat drops his cards.

            “Get me a senzu bean RIGHT THIS _INSTANT_ YOU _SWINE,_ ” Cell bellows.

            “What? What?? Is happening???” says the green man.

            “SENZU BEAN! NOW! SHE’S DYING!

            “WHAT!”

            Cell sets your feet down on the ground and holds you upright with one arm, keeping you flush against his body. Apparently unleashed from any of his previous inhibitions, he uses his other hand to charge up a ball of pure energy. Every hair on your body stands at attention. A fresh spurt of puke tumbles from your lips and all over Cell’s forearm.

            “If you don’t bring me a senzu bean _right now_ , I will destroy this wretched tower and then the world. Is that enough explanation for you simpletons?”

            The cat jumps to his feet, his front paws in a position of surrender.

            “I’ll go get one,” he says. “I’m going now. All right? It’ll take a couple minutes but then I’ll be back. Don’t destroy anything. I’ll be _right back_.”

            The cat scurries off. The other two are staring, mouths agape. The green man has the expression of a bank teller frantically slapping the police-summoning button under the counter.

            “What the fuck is a senzu bean?” you whisper.

            Cell powers down his hand and takes a hard, painful hold of your hair, forcing you to look him in the face.

            “I am so angry with you right now,” he hisses. “I showed you vulnerability. I made you a part of something bigger and THIS is how you repay me? By trying to kill yourself? I would kill you right now if that weren’t exactly what you want. As soon as you’re well again and we’re back in hiding we’re going to have a _long talk_ about this. You can forget about ever going outside again, you wretched little–Hey! HEY!”

            Cell whips his head around toward the green man. He lets go of your head and gesticulates wildly as he yells.

            “Don’t you dare, Dende! Don’t you dare call him! This is a private matter!”

            Dende shakes his head, edging away, one hand raised to his temple.

            “Mark my words, I will _vaporize_ you, you meddling–”

            Two extremely buff guys with the most outlandish spiky haircuts you’ve ever seen wink into existence about ten feet away. The taller one locks eyes with you and goes completely red in the face. The shorter one looks you up and down and asks the question that seems to be on everyone’s mind.

            “What the _fuck_ is going on?”

            Cell wraps both his arms around you and tenses as if he’s about to take off. The motion triggers a fresh wave of vomiting.

            “You stay away from us,” he hisses.

            “Aren’t you supposed to be dead?” asks the taller man.

            “Goku, I think there’s a more pressing issue at hand,” says Dende.

            “Put the woman down, Cell,” says the shorter man, “Or are you so cowardly you’d hide behind a defenseless human?”

            “Hold on!” says Dende. “Let’s all calm down. Maybe we can talk about…whatever this is.”

            “Vegeta…she looks sick,” says the taller man.

            “Oh really? I hadn’t noticed,” sneers the shorter man, apparently named Vegeta.

            “Put her down, Cell,” he orders. “Let the woman go, and then you and I–”

            _“NO!”_

            Cell screams so loud it makes everyone flinch.

            “You can’t take her away from me. She’s all I have. She is the _key_ to my revenge on you idiots,” he insists.

            You realize what he’s going to say next an instant before he says it.

_Oh no. NO. Don’t say it. Don’t say it please for the love of god don’t say–_

            “I love her.”

            For the next several seconds Vegeta, Dende, the taller man, and the man in the turban flick their eyes up and down between you and the monster holding you. They wear the most dumbfounded expressions you’ve ever seen. You can feel something similar contorting your own features as you frantically shake your head back and forth and mouth, “HELP ME,” at the four bizarre strangers witnessing the latest scene of your waking nightmare.

            At that moment the white cat returns and breaks the tension.

            “I got one! I got one. I…oh thank goodness you two are here. Something really hinky is going on.”

            “Throw it to me!” Cell orders.

            The cat does so. Cell catches what looks like an oversized lima bean in his free hand and shoves it into your mouth.

            “Chew this up and swallow it or I’ll kill you.”

            It tastes like a bean. Like nothing in particular. The second it hits your esophagus, however, something miraculous happens. Your stomach quiets. The ache in your hips vanishes completely, to say nothing of the ache between your legs. You feel better than you have in years. Even your busted leg feels better, though you can tell it hasn’t been fixed, per se.

            “Holy shit,” you mumble.

            “Feeling better? Good. We’re going now.”

            Cell looks up to address the other people.

            “Don’t follow us. By the time you see me again, I will have attained a power you fools can only dream of, and then, I–”

            A short, sharp pain lances through your pelvic area and you cry out.

            “What? What is it?”

            “I don’t know, it’s–”

            Another jab, like the worst period cramp you’ve ever had.

            Cell frees his right hand starts powering up another big ball of electric bullshit.

            “If you’ve poisoned her I’ll peel the flesh off every living thing on this accursed world.”

            The cat starts babbling, and Dende starts babbling, and _everyone_ starts yelling at once until you scream. The third and final stab of pain is the worst. Immediately after you feel something fall out of you.

            There’s a horrible sound, like a water balloon breaking on hot asphalt. Everyone freezes. The four strangers are staring at the ground between your feet. Unable to stop yourself, you look down.

            A semi-solid blob of smoky purple goo lies splattered on the white tiles, mixing obscenely with the red fungal slime you puked up earlier. In the center of the blob is a small dark shape with a silhouette that can only be described as embryonic. It’s twitching. No one says anything for about ten seconds, and then Cell starts to wail.

            Everything happens very fast after that.

            Before you can really take in what it is that you’re looking at there’s a tremendous rush of heat just over your head, and then you’re tumbling backwards in Cell’s grasp. Strong arms pull you up and away from him.

            “We don’t have long,” says Vegeta. “He’ll regenerate in no time. Goku, take her to Bulma and come straight back. Bulma will know what to do.”

            Before the man named Goku teleports you to safety, you catch a glimpse of Cell. His head is gone. There’s just a smoldering stump between his shoulders. His arms and legs are convulsing, and you can see something starting to bulge up out of the ruins of his neck.

            An instant later you’re in some kind of tech workshop. A flabbergasted blue-haired woman stares at you from behind a safety visor, a soldering iron burning in her right hand.

            “Hey Bulma! Sorry about this. Vegeta told me to bring her here. Cell’s back from the dead somehow and I have to go deal with it. Later!”

            And then Goku is gone, and it’s just you and Bulma and several huge piles of circuit boards. From a great mental distance you remember that Bulma Briefs is the greatest technological innovator in history. Why in the name of all that is holy two spiky haired musclemen would send you to her instead of to a hospital is beyond your whole comprehension.

            What you mean to say to her is, “Hey, I know this is weird, and we’ve just met, and I’m covered in vomit and not wearing pants, but I think I need to see a mental health professional right now, immediately,” but what you actually say is sort of a strangled groan, and then you pass out.

  * • •



“My guess—and keep in mind that I’m not a biologist, and I didn’t see any of this happen, and also there hasn’t been any research on the effects of senzu beans—is that with the added boost your body successfully recognized the embryo as a foreign agent and expelled it. The healing power of the senzu bean acted as a kind of makeshift abortifacient. Isn’t that fascinating? Like, please stop me if I’m being gross, but I don’t think anyone really knows how to respond to this scenario. I certainly don’t!”

            Bulma’s been talking at you for the last twenty minutes. It’s not unwelcome. Hearing a voice that isn’t yours and isn’t _his_ is like a strong tonic. Breathing air that isn’t the stuffy air of your small house is wonderful. You pick at the sumptuous fried rice dish in front of you, homey and familiar but still obviously nicer than anything you would make for yourself.

            Bulma had asked to have lunch with you today and you had said yes. She wanted to talk about what had happened, and to be honest it wasn’t terrible listening to her speculate. She didn’t seem to pity you or regard you with disgust.

            As soon as you awoke from your fainting spell yesterday Bulma summoned her personal doctor and the two of them rushed you to a private room. Bulma dismissed her as soon as it became clear that there was nothing physically wrong with you. That was the work of the senzu bean, you soon learned.

            More than anything she wanted to know what the hell was going on. You knew you wouldn’t want to explain it more than once, so you had her get a recording device. And then you told her everything. Well, almost everything. Not every horrible little detail seemed important, but you told her enough: how you were at the TV station fifteen years ago, how you attracted the monster’s attention, how he apparently returned from the dead and came to find you. What happened next. Some things that don’t bear repeating now. Bulma, for her part, filled you in on how all those strangers and spiky haired men were related and why any of them knew her. You learned the answers to a lot of questions you never would have thought to ask.

            Talking about it wasn’t as hard as you thought it would be. Not long after you finished your sordid tale Goku and Vegeta reappeared, singed and bruised but alive. Goku reassured you that Cell really was dead this time, and that the attendants of the HFIL would be keeping a much closer watch on him. Whatever the hell that meant. Vegeta said that he took care to incinerate the thing that had been expelled from your body. Bulma promised she would let them listen to the tape and then shooed them away.

            The Briefs family, through Bulma, put you up in one of their many available rooms and insisted you could stay as long as you wanted, free of charge, until you were able to get your life back together. What was the point of being so rich, Bulma laughed, if you didn’t use it to help people? What indeed.

            That night you logged into your groupchat for the first time in weeks. There were hundreds of messages. Almost all of them were your friends trying to get in touch with you, or looking for you, or coordinating with your parents to look for you. Unable to think of anything satisfactory to say, you closed the app and wept.

            Less than twenty-four hours have elapsed since you were last in Cell’s clutches with no real escape in sight. Nothing feels real, especially since there’s no pain anywhere in your body, and no one’s tried to touch you since the doctor was dismissed.

            “So you think,” you say, “that my body was trying to get rid of the…you know, but it needed help?”

            “Seems like it. But who knows,” says Bulma.

            “So I really wasn’t…strong enough.”

            She looks at you quizzically.

            “I wasn’t…I know it’s not my fault that any of it happened but…”

            Tears are gushing from your eyes. You want to stop talking but you can’t. The words are coming out unbidden.

            “I couldn’t…I couldn’t be near people. I couldn’t stand it. How could I be in the world after knowing that everyone I ever cared about was going to be killed? I spent those ten days stuck in a hospital bed, convinced that all my friends and family were going to be killed and there was nothing I could do about it and I wouldn’t have time to process any of it. But then it didn’t happen. The world didn’t end, and I had time, but it wasn’t enough.

            “Just the idea of losing everyone like that was too much. If it ever happened again…I wasn’t strong enough. So I went away from everyone, and everything. Because I was weak, and if I hadn’t gone away, he never would have been able to do any of this. Not to me. And maybe a different person wouldn’t have let it go on for so long. Or a different person would have stopped him from-from–”

            “You know that’s not true,” Bulma says softly.

            “I know. But I don’t believe it,” you say.

            For a moment it seems like Bulma’s going to hug you. Instead, she stands up from the little table and turns to leave.

            “I think I know who can help you.”

            “Hey, Mrs. Briefs?”

            She smiles.

            “Please, Mrs. Briefs is my mother.”

            “Can I maybe get a cool robot leg to replace my busted one?” you ask, sniffling and miserable.

            Her eyes gleam with a wild light.

            “I will personally see to it that you get the coolest robot leg in the world. I’ll be back later today, all right? You’re safe now. You’ll always be safe from now on.”

            That just sets you crying again. Later, after you’ve given up trying to eat the rest of the fried rice, Vegeta barges into your room without knocking. When you look up at him he halts in the middle of the room with his arms crossed.

_Just like–_

            You don’t let yourself finish that thought.

            “You’ve survived a horrible trauma,” he says.

            He hasn’t blinked once since you set eyes on him.

            “That’s what they tell me,” you say.

            “Everything is not going to be all right,” he continues.

            “…Oh.”

            “Anyone who says that to you is lying. They don’t understand. You’re different now. You’re never going to be that person you were before all this. That lost part of your life is gone forever. Everything is NOT going to be all right.”

            He practically spits out the last words. Then he looks out the window.

            “But it doesn’t have to be. Everything doesn’t have to be all right. Hell, MOST things can be bad and it will be fine. You’re still alive. And that matters more than anything else. You have a life to live. Don’t fucking waste it.”

            You nod, slowly at first but then fast.

            “I’ll try, I guess.”

            “Good,” he says. “I was never here.”

            And then he’s gone, and you’re alone in the nicely furnished room again. You stand up from your chair and go to the window. There’s a broad green lawn just outside, and a little ways off you can see a highway with cars rushing to and fro. Farther on is the horizon, clustered with gray clouds. It might rain. Or it might not.

            You’re free to go wherever you want. You never have to go back to the woods if you don’t want to. Someone else can go get the few things you might want from your house. Pretty soon you’ll feel stable enough to draft a message to your friends and family and start the long, strange process of rejoining the human race. Everything is not going to be all right. And that’s fine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's it! For real this time. I wish I'd finished it sooner but now it's done. I feel like I've exorcised something, in a weird way. Thank you to every single person who read this thing, even if you hated it, and DOUBLE EXTRA THANK YOU to everyone who left a comment. Triple GAY thank you to everyone who left LONG comments, y'all know who you are. You guys are ridiculous and I owe you so much. 
> 
> I want to do a special shoutout to tumblr users obrigadinha and henriettadarlington for giving me the kind of motivation I used to only dream about. You two are the best. I finished this for you and I want everyone to know it. Also, shout out to rocksinmuffin for just being an all around good creative influence.


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